Digital signal averager with logarithmic time base

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In accordance with the principles of the present invention, there is provided method and apparatus for enabling the observation of a physical reaction over several decades in time.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a physical reaction is sampled and the resulting sampled output is provided in periodic, discrete time intervals.
The periodic sampled output is then averaged over ever-increasing time intervals which are exponentially related to the initial sample intervals.
This provides the desired ability to measure not only the rapidly occurring transient conditions of a physical reaction, but also one which extends over several time decades.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, there is provided a signal averager capable of digitizing an analog signal that occurs over many decades in time.
The averaging is done in the following manner: (1) initially, an analog signal, such as one resulting from a sampled physical reaction, is periodically integrated over fixed time segments (of discrete length); (2) the integrated analog output is then converted into digital form at the end of each discrete time interval; and (3) summing the converted digital signal over a respective second group of time intervals increasing exponentially, (for instance) by powers of two, and dividing by the number of linear time segments in each respective second group of time intervals.
There is thus provided a digital signal averager with logarithmic time base.