Analog-to-Information Converters: research trends and open problems

Analog-to-Information Converters (AICs) represent the implementation of the Compressed Sensing theory in practice. An AIC is a device that takes as input an analog signal and, unlike traditional ADCs, gives as output a digitized and compressed version of the input. In the literature, some AIC architectures have been proposed. Although the topic is relatively new several efforts have been made in the research community to propose AIC architectures and schemes. In order to identify the possible future application scenarios of such devices their characterization and standardization issues need to be analyzed too. This paper provides: (i) a short introduction to compressed sensing, (ii) basic information about Analog-to-Information Converters, (iii) an overview of the main applications of AICs and their current implementations, the research trends and some open issues focusing on their characterization and standardization.