The alteration of a signal's waveform as it passes through a system, degrading its fidelity.Signal distortion is the unwanted alteration of a signal's waveform as it travels through a medium or system. In physics and engineering, a signal can be any time-varying quantity—an electrical voltage, a radio wave, an optical pulse, or even a sound wave. Distortion means the output is no longer a faithful replica of the input; the shape, timing, or frequency content has been changed. This degradation is a fundamental limit in communication systems, measurement instruments, and data storage, because it reduces the ability to recover the original information.
Distortion arises from several physical mechanisms. Linear distortion occurs when different frequency components of the signal are attenuated or delayed by different amounts—for example, a cable that absorbs high frequencies more than low ones. Nonlinear distortion happens when the system's response depends on the signal's amplitude, generating new frequency components that were not present in the original. Noise, interference, and dispersion (where different wavelengths travel at different speeds) are also common sources. The result is a corrupted waveform that must be corrected or compensated for.
Signal distortion is a central concern in telecommunications, audio engineering, and medical imaging, where engineers design equalizers, filters, and error-correction algorithms to restore fidelity.
In optical fibers, distortion from dispersion can be so severe that a short pulse spreads out over hundreds of meters, limiting data rates unless special compensation techniques are used.
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