Introduction To Signals and Systems
Defining a Signal In Bioengineering
In a general sense, signals are sets of data points that vary over a domain, usually time, which encodes information for, or about a system. In bioengineering, we will envisioning biological processes and other points of interest as a set of information, which we call signals, that will then be sent as inputs to other objects, which we call systems, in which they can be transformed into outputs.
We can modify and interpret the information in signals using mathematical methods we already know to predict how an input will transform when put through defined systems, or allow us to design the system to modify signals in specific ways.
Defining a System In Bioengineering
A system is anything that generates or modifies a signal. The most pertinent system in the bioengineering is the human body. The human body consists of multiple systems working together to produce emergent behaviours. These signals can consist of different types of information such as voltage in the Central Nervous System or pressure in the cardiovascular system. Signals can also be measured at different levels, for example, voltage throughout the entire body could be measured, while voltage across a single neuron could also be measured instead.
Systems outside of the human body can consist of devices that are used to measure these signals as they often modify signals by amplifying them and filtering out noise to produce results with better Signal To Noise Ratio which are more useful to us.