Effect of additive dither on the resolution of ideal quantizers

The effect of adding dither to a given signal before its quantization is investigated. To this aim the relationship between the statistical description of the dither and the mean value of the quantization error and of the quantizer output is derived. The presented results allow the determination of the resolution limits that can be achieved by low-pass filtering a set of quantized samples of a slowly varying dithered signal. Discrete, uniform, sinusoidal, and Gaussian dithering are analyzed, thus providing a quantitative basis for choosing the most appropriate dither signal for a given application.>