Signalausbeute

Signalausbeute is a term used in German-language literature to describe the efficiency with which a system extracts a usable signal from a measured or transmitted signal. It is not a universally standardized quantity, and its exact definition varies by field, such as communications, sensing, or biomedical signal processing.

In power-based formulations, signalausbeute is viewed as the ratio of the usable signal power to the total signal energy entering the system, for example η = P_out,usable / P_in,total. In information-theoretic terms, it can be described as the fraction of information successfully recovered, such as an achievable rate or mutual information relative to the channel capacity. Different contexts may use different thresholds or quality criteria to separate usable signal from residual noise or distortion.

Measurements of signalausbeute typically involve comparing input and output quality metrics, such as signal-to-noise ratio, bit error rate, peak-to-noise ratios, or mutual information. Practical evaluation requires explicit specification of what counts as “usable,” the time window, the bandwidth, and the processing steps used to extract the signal.

Factors influencing signalausbeute include sensor sensitivity and calibration, noise sources and interference, channel conditions, sampling and quantization, and the effectiveness of processing algorithms (filtering, adaptive equalization, and artifact removal). In many applications, improving signalausbeute entails a combination of hardware improvements and advanced signal processing to maximize the portion of the signal that remains usable after processing.

See also: signal-to-noise ratio, efficiency, information capacity, demodulation, signal processing.