Applications of Nyquist's Theorem

Nyquist's Theorem can be utilized in every field that involves signal processing and signal analysis. Nyquist's Theorem is helpful in things such as working with radio devices, image processing, and audio engineering.

Radios obviously make use of signals, since the radio tower must project the radio signal to your car or portable radio. Radios work by isolating certain frequencies. When someone tunes in to 94.7 FM, they are really isolating frequencies close to 94.7 Megahertz (MHz). Nyquist's Theorem comes into play for radio systems because the radio systems need to effectively analyze the radio waves that they receive. AM and FM stand for Amplitude Modulation and Frequency Modulation. These are the two methods through which radio providers "encode" the information that they send out. When some cars isolates frequencies, they are programmed with Nyquist's Theorem in mind to alter the sampling rate. The sampling rate is altered so that it is a small amount higher than the Nyquist Rate for the given radio station. This enables the most effective and efficient analysis of the signal in order to convert it into audio.

One interesting application of Nyquist's Theorem is in image processing. Images can be thought of as multi-dimensional signals that occur in two-dimensional space, rather than time. This is actually one of the most used methods of analyzing images. Nyquist's Theorem, then, is still relevant, and its impact is familiar. When capturing image data, pixels are the sample rate, since they are the size of each piece of a photograph. [5] The Nyquist Rate is thus twice as small in each dimension as one pixel. Thus, aliasing can occur in images, and this results in a low level of clarity. This is why cameras need to focus. However, if aliasing does occur, many techniques have been created to reconstruct images. These reconstruction filters enable the restoration of some data in images. An example of reverse aliasing is shown below.

Anti-Aliasing techniques enable the improvement of image quality. [10]

A third application of Nyquist's Theorem is to the area of audio engineering. Signals are all over the field of audio engineering. Signals are created and modified in electric guitars, guitar effect pedals, wireless microphones, and much more. Electric guitars have devices called pickups that turn the vibrations of the metal strings into signals. These signals travel out of the guitar along wires and into various effects pedals. A variety of effects pedals exist, such as Overdrive, Reverb, and Delay. Guitar pedals modify the signal that the guitar created in various ways, so these pedals are designed with consideration for Nyquist's Theorem. Any time that pedals must sample the guitar's signal, they must do so at a rate more than twice the highest frequency played on the guitar in order to add modifications that exactly match the pitch that the guitarist played. Nyquist's Theorem is heavily used in wireless audio systems, like wireless microphone systems. The receivers in these systems must use sampling techniques to acquire all of the audio information sent from the microphone or other wireless device. As a result, Nyquist's Theorem is used in the design of the receivers so that they can completely capture all of the information that would normally travel through a wire.

For work in many fields, Nyquist's Theorem is an important topic to understand. Nyquist's Theorem allows people to save time and money while maintaining optimal quality images, sounds, and more.
Further Reading and References

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