Dither inputs are externally applied disturbances that have been used in control systems and in signal processing systems to alleviate the effects of nonlinearity, hysteresis, static friction, gear backlash, quantization, etc. In many cases, dither inputs have been used to “improve” system behavior without there being a clear idea of the nature of the improvement sought and without any method for designing the dither signal other than empiricism. It is the purpose of this chapter to explain the uses of dither signals in systems containing quantizers. We will employ the mathematical methods developed herein for the design of dither signals and for analysis of their benefits and limitations.

DITHER: ANTI-ALIAS FILTERING OF THE QUANTIZER INPUT CF

When the input signal to a uniform quantizer has statistical properties allowing it to satisfy QT I or QT II, the PQN model can be applied to describe the statistical behavior of the quantizer. This is a linear model, and from the point of view of moments and joint moments, the quantizer acts like a source of additive independent noise. This type of linear behavior would be highly desirable under many circumstances.

When the quantizer input is inadequate for satisfaction of QT II, it is possible to add an independent dither signal to the quantizer input so that the sum of input and dither does satisfy QT II. Then the quantizer exhibits linear behavior and we can say that it is linearized.

The theory described in this book is very general: it describes well most quantization and roundoff situations. However, assumptions have been made which are necessary for proper application. In this appendix, some of these will be briefly described.

LONG–TIME VS. SHORT–TIME PROPERTIES OF QUANTIZATION

Statistical theory of quantization deals with statistics of signals: PDFs, CFs and moments. The basic idea is coined at the beginning of Chapter 4: “Instead of devoting attention to the signal being quantized, let its probability density function be considered.”

Having extensively explored the theory, a few basic questions need to be discussed, like:

• when may the PDF be used?

• what are the consequences of the use of the PDF in the application of the theory?

• what has to be done if the PDF may not used, e.g. when the signal is deterministic?

For the introduction of the probability density function, Fig. 3.1(a) shows an ensemble of random time functions. These random time functions are realizations of a stochastic process. In practice, usually just one realization is measured, thus averaging is performed as averaging in time — which means that time averages are assumed to be equal to ensemble averages. In this case, the process is called ergodic (see page 43).

Quantization theory deals with statistical properties of ergodic processes. Fulfillment of QT I ensures that the PDF of x can be determined from the PDF of x′.

Quantization theory deals primarily with continuous–amplitude signals and continuous amplitude dither. However, within a digital signal processor or a digital computer, both the signal and the dither are represented with finite word length. Examples are digital FIR and IIR filtering, digital control, and numerical calculations. In these cases, intermediate results (e.g. products of numbers) whose amplitude is discrete, have excess bit length, so they must be re–quantized to be stored with the bit number of the memory. Before re–quantization, digital dither may be added to the signal, or sometimes this is even necessary to avoid limit cycles and hysteresis (see Fig. J.1, and Exercises 17.10—17.12, page 462).

Another scenario, when the dither is digital, is when the dither is generated within the computer for the quantization of analog signals. This usually means that each dither sample is produced by a pseudo–random number generator, and a D/A converter is used to convert the number to an analog level to be added to the input of the quantizer before quantization.

In both cases, it is good to know the properties of the most common digital dithers. Therefore, in this appendix we will investigate the properties of digital dither which is desired to be added to a digital signal before requantization.

QUANTIZATION OF REPRESENTABLE SAMPLES

An interesting approach was presented by Wannamaker, Lipshitz, Vanderkooy and Wright (2000). They have recognized that in general, no digital dither can completely remove quantization bias.

Discrete signals are sampled in time and quantized in amplitude. The granularity of such signals, caused by both sampling and quantization, can be analyzed by making use of sampling theory. This chapter reviews sampling theory and develops it in a conventional way for the analysis of sampling in time and for the description of sampled signals. Chapter 3 reviews basic statistical theory related to probability density, characteristic function, and moments. Chapter 4 will show how sampling theory and statistical ideas can be used to analyze quantization.

The origins of sampling theory and interpolation theory go back to the work of Cauchy, Borel, Lagrange, Laplace and Fourier, if not further. We do not have the space here to account for the whole history of sampling, so we will only highlight some major points. For historical details, refer to Higgins (1985), Jerri (1977), Marks (1991).

The sampling theorem, like many other fundamental theorems, was gradually developed by the giants of science, and it is not easy to determine the exact date of its appearance. Shannon (1949) remarks about the imprecise formulation of it that “this is a fact which is common knowledge in the communication art.”

According to Higgins (1985), the first statement that is essentially equivalent to the sampling theorem is due to Borel (1897). The most often cited early paper is however the one of E. T. Whittaker (1915).

Representation of physical quantities in terms of floating–point numbers allows one to cover a very wide dynamic range with a relatively small number of digits. Given this type of representation, roundoff errors are roughly proportional to the amplitude of the represented quantity. In contrast, roundoff errors with uniform quantization are bounded between ±q/2 and are not in any way proportional to the represented quantity.

Floating–point is in most cases so advantageous over fixed–point number representation that it is rapidly becoming ubiquitous. The movement toward usage of floating–point numbers is accelerating as the speed of floating–point calculation is increasing and the cost of implementation is going down. For this reason, it is essential to have a method of analysis for floating–point quantization and floating–point arithmetic.

THE FLOATING–POINT QUANTIZER

Binary numbers have become accepted as the basis for all digital computation. We therefore describe floating–point representation in terms of binary numbers. Other number bases are completely possible, such as base 10 or base 16, but modern digital hardware is built on the binary base.

The numbers in the table of Fig. 12.1 are chosen to provide a simple example. We begin by counting with nonnegative binary floating–point numbers as illustrated in Fig. 12.1. The counting starts with the number 0, represented here by 00000. Each number is multiplied by 2E, where E is an exponent. Initially, let E = 0. Continuing the count, the next number is 1, represented by 00001, and so forth.

Roundoff errors in calculations are often neglected by scientists. The success of the IEEE double precision standard makes most of us think that the precision of a simple personal computer is virtually infinite. Common sense cannot really grasp the meaning of 16 precise decimal digits.

However, roundoff errors can easily destroy the result of a calculation, even if it looks reasonable. Therefore, it is worth investigating them even for IEEE double precision representation.

COMPARISON TO REFERENCE VALUES

Investigation of roundoff errors is most straightforwardly based on comparison of the results to reference values, that is, to the outcome of an ideally precise calculation.

First of all, we need to note that the way of comparison is not well defined. It is usually done by looking at the difference of the finite precision result and of the reference value. This is very reasonable, but cannot be applied in all cases. If, for example, we investigate a stand–alone resonant system, the reference and the finite precision results could be two similar sine waves, with slightly different frequency. In such a case, the difference of the imprecise result and precise result grows significantly with time, although the outputs are still very similar. Therefore, the basis of comparison needs to be chosen very carefully.