Digital signal processing (DSP) is concerned with the representation of signals

by a sequence of numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals. Digital

signal processing and analog signal processing are subfields of signal processi
ng. DSP includes subfields like: audioand speech signal processing, sonar and ra
dar signal processing, sensor array processing, spectral estimation, statistical
signal processing,digital image processing, signal processing for communication
s, control of systems, biomedical signal processing, seismic data processing, et
c.
The goal of DSP is usually to measure, filter and/or compress continuous real-wo
rld analog signals. The first step is usually to convert the signal from an anal
og to a digital form, by sampling it using an analog-to-digital converter (ADC),
which turns the analog signal into a stream of numbers. However, often, the req
uired output signal is another analog output signal, which requires a digital-to
-analog converter (DAC). Even if this process is more complex than analog proces
sing and has a discrete value range, the application of computational power to d
igital signal processing allows for many advantages over analog processing in ma
ny applications, such as error detection and correction in transmission as well
as data compression.[1]
DSP algorithms have long been run on standard computers, on specialized processo
rs called digital signal processors (DSPs), or on purpose-built hardware such as
application-specific integrated circuit (ASICs). Today there are additional tec
hnologies used for digital signal processing including more powerful general pur
pose microprocessors, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), digital signal con
trollers(mostly for industrial apps such as motor control), and stream processor
s, among others.[2]
Applications
The main applications of DSP are audio signal processing, audio compression, dig
ital image processing, video compression, speech processing, speech recognition,
digital communications, RADAR, SONAR, seismology, and biomedicine. Specific exa
mples are speech compression and transmission in digital mobile phones, room cor
rection of sound in hi-fi and sound reinforcement applications, weather forecast
ing, economic forecasting, seismic data processing, analysis and control of indu
strial processes, medical imaging such as CATscans and MRI, MP3 compression, com
puter graphics, image manipulation, hi-fi loudspeaker crossovers and equalizatio
n, and audio effectsfor use with electric guitar amplifiers.