Notes on Digital Signal Processing: Practical Recipes for Design, Analysis and Implementation

Note 1. Navigating the DSP Landscape

Digital signal processing (DSP) is based on the notions that an analog signal can be digitized and that mathematical operations can effectively take the place of (or even surpass) electronic manipulations performed on the original analog signal. In the earliest days of DSP, its applications were limited to sonar and seismology because these fields utilized low-bandwidth signals that could be sampled at adequate rates using the available technology. As digital processing circuits and analog-to-digital converters have become faster and faster, the number of applications for DSP has exploded.

Hundreds of techniques (and variations thereof) are used in DSP, and it can be difficult to see the big picture—how all ...