Uniform polar quantizer with three-stage hierarchical variable-length coding for measurement signals with Gaussian distribution

•New polar quantizer for A/D conversion of measurements signals is presented.•It has small complexity and can achieve very good performances.•Tree-stage hierarchical coding with variable-lengths codewords is introduced.•This model achieves for 2–3 dB higher SQNR than uniform scalar quantizer.

In this paper, a new model of the uniform polar quantizer with three-stage hierarchical coding is proposed, for the analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion of measurement signals with the Gaussian distribution. The aim is to design quantizer with small complexity which can achieve very good performances. Proposed model accomplishes this aim. Applied code uses variable-length codewords, in order to achieve compression. The proposed model achieves much better performances (for 2–3 dB higher SQNR (signal-to-quantization noise ratio) for the same bit-rate) compared to the uniform scalar quantizer. Due to its small complexity and very good performances, the proposed model is suitable for using in many measurement systems for A/D conversion of measurement signals. This model especially can be useful in measurement systems where transmission of measurement signals is performed (e.g. telemetry, telemedicine, wireless sensor networks, etc.). The proposed model is applied for compression of a vibration signal.