signaalikaskadin

Signaalikaskadin (signal cascade) refers to a chain of signal-processing blocks in which the output of each block becomes the input of the next. The arrangement is used to progressively modify, amplify, filter, or otherwise transform a signal, often to achieve a desired overall effect that would be difficult to obtain with a single stage.

In a cascade, the overall transfer function is the product of the transfer functions of the individual stages. Cascading can provide large gain, improved modularity, and the ability to tailor processing step by step. However, it also tends to accumulate noise, distortion, and latency, and mismatches between stages can introduce reflections or limited bandwidth. In analog systems, the Friis' formula describes how the noise figure accumulates with cascaded stages.

Design considerations include impedance matching between stages, interstage coupling, bandwidth and phase response, linearity and dynamic range, saturation behavior, and potential stability issues. Careful planning of gain distribution, filtering, and isolation between stages helps preserve signal integrity and prevent unwanted interactions.

Applications span electronics and communications, including radio receivers (RF amplifiers, mixers, IF filters, and demodulators), audio amplification chains, sensor and measurement instruments, and digital signal processing pipelines where successive algorithms operate on successive data streams. A typical example is an audio chain with a preamplifier, equalizer or tone control, and power amplifier, or a multistage ADC-DSP chain in a data acquisition system.

Related concepts include signal processing pipelines, cascaded filters, and parallel processing; design trade-offs involve gain, noise, latency, and complexity.