Analog to digital conversion with signal expansion

A system for converting a received analog signal to a digital signal, the system comprising:

• at least one receiving component configured to receive an analog signal;
• at least one dividing component configured to periodically divide the received analog signal into a plurality of discrete signals at a predetermined interval, wherein each of the plurality of divided signals is associated with a voltage;
• and
• at least one quantizer configured to quantize the voltage associated with at least one of the plurality of divided signals using a vector quantizer with relaxed characteristics operating over a digital conversion level that can change with a speed lower than the Nyquist rate required for time domain analog to digital conversion.

A method for converting a received analog signal into a digital signal, the method comprising:

• receiving an analog signal;
• projecting the received analog signal over basis functions yielding parallel data streams;
• sampling a plurality of basis coefficients;
• calculating N basis coefficients in parallel analog computations every Tc seconds followed by N parallel analog to digital converters each of which runs at a speed inversely proportional to a time-window of Tc seconds duration, introducing a trade-off between sampling speed reduction and system complexity;
• associating each of the N basis coefficients with a voltage;
• and
• quantizing the voltage associated with at least one of the plurality of basis coefficients at the end of the time window Tc using a vector quantizer with relaxed characteristics operating over a digital conversion level that can change with a speed lower than that required for time domain analog to digital conversion.