Beyond Nyquist: Efficient Sampling of Sparse Bandlimited Signals

Understand

Wideband analog signals push contemporary analog-to-digital conversion systems to their performance limits.

• In many applications, however, sampling at the Nyquist rate is inefficient because the signals of interest contain only a small number of significant frequencies relative to the bandlimit, although the locations of the frequencies may not be known a priori.
• For this type of sparse signal, other sampling strategies are possible.
• This paper describes a new type of data acquisition system, called a random demodulator, that is constructed from robust, readily available components.