An
anti-aliasing filter is a filter used before a signal sampler, to restrict the bandwidth of a signal to approximately satisfy the
sampling theorem. Since the theorem states that unambiguous interpretation of the signal from its samples is possible when the power of frequencies above the
Nyquist frequency is zero, a real anti-aliasing filter can generally not completely satisfy the theorem. A realizable anti-aliasing filter will typically permit some
aliasing to occur; the amount of aliasing that does occur depends on how good the filter is and what the frequency content of the input signal is.
Anti-aliasing filters are commonly used at the input of
digital signal processing systems, for example in sound digitization systems; similar filters are used as
reconstruction filters at the output of such systems, for example in music players. In the latter case, the filter is to prevent aliasing in the conversion of samples back to a continuous signal, where again perfect stop-band rejection would be required to guarantee zero aliasing.
The theoretical impossibility of realizing perfect filters is not much of an impediment in practice, though practical considerations do lead to system design choices such as oversampling to make it easier to realize "good enough" anti-aliasing filters.
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can someone explain what this mean?