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Number Stream

  • Page ID
    59769
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    Discussion Question:

    The output from a digitizer is the following set of numbers:

    2343
    2343
    2342
    2343
    2343

    Is there a way to tell if the true value is 2343, with a noise spike giving 2342 or a true value of 2342.8?

    From just this set of data, there is no way to tell the difference between the two scenarios. Taking data over a prolonged period of time might reveal

    - that the spike to 2342 happens only every few hundred samples, at which point it's probably noise

    - that the spike to 2342 happens periodically, in sync with the power line or some external noise source, and so is deterministic error that can be ignored

    - shows up at random points in the series of measurements but, on average, 1 time out of 5, in which case the true value is 2342.8

    Until we know more about noise behavior of data converters, there's no way to definitively answer this question!


    This page titled Number Stream is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Contributor.

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