Difference-Based Recovery for Modulo Sampling: Tightened Bounds and Robustness Guarantees

Abstract: Conventional analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) clip when signals exceed their input range. Modulo (unlimited) sampling overcomes this limitation by folding the signal before digitization, but existing recovery methods are either computationally intensive or constrained by loose oversampling bounds that demand high sampling rates. In addition, none account for sampling jitter, which is unavoidable in practice. This paper revisits difference-based recovery and establishes new theoretical and practical guarantees. In the noiseless setting, we prove that arbitrarily high difference order reduces the sufficient oversampling factor from $2\pi e$ to $\pi$, substantially tightening classical bounds. For fixed order $N$, we derive a noise-aware sampling condition that guarantees stable recovery. For second-order difference-based recovery ($N=2$), we further extend the analysis to non-uniform sampling, proving robustness under bounded jitter. An FPGA-based hardware prototype demonstrates reliable reconstruction with amplitude expansion up to $\rho = 108$, confirming the feasibility of high-performance unlimited sensing with a simple and robust recovery pipeline.