29 June 2020

Difference Between Attenuation and Distortion

Attenuation and distortion are the types of impairment occur in the signal, in another word these are undesired effects on the signals. The main key difference between the attention and distortion is that the attenuation of the signal losses some part of energy where the amplitude of the signal may decrease. While other words, distortion is the change in the waveform of the signal due to noise. Here this article gives information about the main key difference between attenuation and distortion to better understand this topic.

What is attenuation?

Attenuation can be known as the power loss of a signal traveling through any media. It is a basic natural phenomenon and occurred due to wave characteristics such as refraction, reflection, and diffraction. For instance, sound waves containing our vice cannot be heard at a long distance due to attenuation.

What is the Distortion?

Distortion is basically known as the alternation of the original signal. This may happen due to there properties of the medium. There are many types of distortion such as amplitude distortion, harmonic distortion, and phase distortion and so many more. For electromagnetic wave polarization distortions also occurs when the distortion occurs, the shape of the waveform is changed.

The main key difference between attenuation and distortion:

  • Attenuation does not change the waveform of the signal but distortion does change it.
  • Overcoming the effects of the attenuation is easy, While distortion effects are harder to remove.
  • Any loss in the strength of the signal because of resistance of the medium is called attenuation, The distortion is any alteration of the original signal induced by the attenuation, noise, or any other type of interference.
  • When the level of amplitude reduces over the specific amount in the signal it is known as attenuation, On the contrary, history is the attenuation happening at the different amount and distinct part of the signal.
  • Removable the effects of attenuation is easier than removing the effect distortion.
  • Although scaled-down in amplitude, the shape of the waveform doesn't change in attenuation unlike in distortion.
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