Bipolar signal

This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Bipolar signal" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2009)

In telecommunications, a bipolar signal is a signal which may assume either of two polarities, neither of which is zero.

A bipolar signal may have a two-state non-return-to-zero (NRZ) or a three-state return-to-zero (RZ) binary coding scheme.

A bipolar signal is usually symmetrical with respect to zero amplitude, i.e. the absolute values of the positive and negative signal states are nominally equal. Contrast with unipolar encoding where one state is zero amplitude.^[1]