THE SENSITIVITY OF THE PROBABILITY DENSITY FUNCTION OF THE QUANTIZATION ERROR TO THE FLUCTUATION OF THE AMPLITUDE OF A SINUSOIDAL SIGNAL UNDERGOING ANALOG-TODIGITAL CONVERSION

Anna Domanska, Adam Derkowski

Abstract

The characteristics of analog-to-digital converters (A/D converters) are established and assessed based on the results of the conversion of a sinusoidal signal. This method of measurement has been selected because it is relatively easy to generate sinusoidal signals with the required good parameters. Among the criteria of the measurement of an actual a-d conversion is the probability density function (PDF) of the quantization error. Unfortunately, the distribution of the PDF of the error of the quantization of a sinusoidal input signal is not rectangular (because sinusoidal signals do not comply with Widrow’s quantization theorem), and moreover the form of the function is highly sensitive to slight offset errors or gain errors appearing in the part of the signal path preceding the A/D converter. The paper discusses sensitivity of the PDF of the quantization error on the variations of the amplitude of the signal and the possibilities of remedying this situation by means of quantization with dither signal.

Keywords

analog-digital conversion, dithering, quantization error

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PWC-2003-TC4-072.pdf

DOI

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IMEKO TC

TC4 - Measurement of Electrical Quantities

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