Waveform averaging

In PicoScope, waveform averaging is a mathematical function that computes the average of a sequence of waveforms. This is useful for removing noise from a repetitive signal. The result of averaging is a cleaner picture with the same frequency resolution as the original capture but with increased vertical resolution.

The example opposite shows the result of waveform averaging on a noisy square wave. The lower waveform is the raw signal. The upper waveform is the cleaned-up signal at the same scale factor. Despite the reduction in noise this waveform has a large amount of high-frequency detail, giving us an accurate picture of the original pulse shape.

The waveform buffer toolbar at the top of the window shows that PicoScope captured 32 waveforms to create the averaged result. It is also possible to run PicoScope in a continuous averaging mode, in which the displayed waveform is the time-weighted average of all previous waveforms.