Una señal analógica es un tipo de señal generada por algún tipo de fenómeno electromagnético y que es representable por una función matemática continua en la que es variable su amplitud y periodo (representando un dato de información) en función del tiempo. Algunas magnitudes físicas comúnmente portadoras de una señal de este tipo son eléctricas como la intensidad, la tensión y la potencia, pero también pueden ser hidráulicas como la presión y térmicas como la temperatura. En la naturaleza, el conjunto de señales que percibimos son analógicas, así la luz, el sonido, la energía etc, son señales que tienen una variación continua. Incluso la descomposición de la luz en el arco iris vemos como se realiza de una forma suave y continúa. Una onda sinusoidal es una señal analógica de una sola frecuencia. Los voltajes de la voz y del video son señales analógicas que varían de acuerdo con el sonido o variaciones de la luz que corresponden a la información que se está transmitiendo.

Leer el artículo completo en Wikipedia · CC-BY-SA

(For a broader coverage related to this topic, see Signal (electronics).) An analog signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature (variable) of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous voltage of the signal varies continuously with the pressure of the sound waves. It differs from a digital signal, in which the continuous quantity is a representation of a sequence of discrete values which can only take on one of a finite number of values. The term analog signal usually refers to electrical signals; however, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, human speech, and other systems may also convey or be considered analog signals. An analog signal uses some property of the medium to convey the signal's information. For example, an aneroid barometer uses rotary position as the signal to convey pressure information. In an electrical signal, the voltage, current, or frequency of the signal may be varied to represent the information. Any information may be conveyed by an analog signal; often such a signal is a measured response to changes in physical phenomena, such as sound, light, temperature, position, or pressure. The physical variable is converted to an analog signal by a transducer. For example, in sound recording, fluctuations in air pressure (that is to say, sound) strike the diaphragm of a microphone which induces corresponding fluctuations in the current produced by a coil in an electromagnetic microphone, or the voltage produced by a condenser microphone. The voltage or the current is said to be an "analog" of the sound. An analog signal has a theoretically infinite resolution. In practice an analog signal is subject to electronic noise and distortion introduced by communication channels and signal processing operations, which can progressively degrade the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In contrast, digital signals have a finite resolution. Converting an analog signal to digital form introduces a constant low-level noise called quantization noise into the signal which determines the noise floor, but once in digital form the signal can in general be processed or transmitted without introducing additional noise or distortion. In analog systems, it is difficult to detect when such degradation occurs. However, in digital systems, degradation can not only be detected but corrected as well.

Leer el artículo completo en Wikipedia · CC-BY-SA