Digital Signal Processing

Abstract

Digital signal processing is an area of science and engineering that has developed rapidly over the past 40 years. This rapid development is a result of the significant advances in digital computer technology and integrated-circuitfabrication. Thedigital computers and associated digital hardware of four decades ago were relatively largeandexpensiveand, asaconsequence, theirusewaslimitedtogeneral-purpose non-real-time(off-line) scientific computations and business applications. The rapid developments in integrated-circuit technology, starting with medium-scale integration (MSI) and progressing to large-scaleintegration (LSI),andnow,very-large-scale integration (VLSI) of electronic circuits has spurred the development of powerful, smaller, faster, and cheaper digital computers and special-purpose digital hardware. These inexpensive and relatively fast digital circuits have made it possible to construct highly sophisticated digital systems capable of performing complex digital signal processing functions and tasks, which are usually too difficult and/or too expensive to be performed by analog circuitry or analog signal processing systems. Hence many of the signal processing tasks that were conventionally performed by analog means are realized today by less expensive and often more reliable digital hardware.