What is decimation definition?

Decimation is the process of reducing the size or number of something, often with the aim of improving efficiency or effectiveness. In some contexts, decimation can refer to a drastic reduction in size or value, or even to a loss of life, as in the historical practice of punishing a disobedient or rebellious military unit by executing every tenth soldier.

In the digital signal processing (DSP) field, decimation refers to the technique of reducing the sampling rate of a signal by a factor of two or more, typically to reduce computational complexity or conserve storage space. Decimation can be used in conjunction with other DSP operations, such as filtering and interpolation, to manipulate and analyze digital signals.

In mathematics, decimation can refer to a process of repeatedly dividing a set into smaller, equally-sized subsets, often used in numerical simulations or statistical analysis. The decimation process can help to reduce the computational complexity of certain algorithms while retaining important features of the original data.