This paper studies the reduction of nonlinearity of digital peak limiters used for maximizing signal levels. The goal is to control the time-varying gain smoothly enough to avoid frequency artifacts in the output signal. Smoother gain control is traditionally obtained by lowpass Þltering the gain or the signal envelope. However, simple Þltering causes overshoots and leads to either clipped output or non-maximal signal levels, depending on the gain applied to the limiter output. In order to obtain smooth gain control without clipping, this paper proposes an envelope detection method based on order-statistics Þltering.

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