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A discrete signal or discrete-time signal is a time series, perhaps a signal that has been sampled from a continuous-time signal. Unlike a continuous-time signal, a discrete-time signal is not a function of a continuous-time argument, but is a sequence of quantities, that is, a function over a domain of discrete integers. Each value in the sequence is called a sample.
When a discrete-time signal is a sequence corresponding to uniformly spaced times, it has an associated sampling rate; the sampling rate is not apparent in the data sequence, so may be associated as a separate data item.
Digital signals
A digital signal is a discrete-time signal that takes on only a discrete set of values. It typically derives from a discrete signal that has been quantized.
Common practical digital signals are represented as 8-bit (256 levels), 16-bit (65,536 levels), 32-bit (4.3 billion levels), and so on, though any number of quantization levels is possible, not just powers of two.
See also
- Aliasing, Anti-aliasing filter
- Analog-to-digital converter, Digital-to-analog converter
- Continuous signal
- Digital control
- Digital frequency
- Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem
- Whittaker–Shannon interpolation formula
- Sample (signal)
- Sampling (signal processing)
- Signal (electrical engineering)
"Discrete signal"