Derivative of a step in discrete domain is impulse and would like to avoid it. How to do it?

I used discrete derivative blocks in my model. Discontinuous signals are fed to these derivative blocks and sometimes I get peaks in the output(Impulse) and would like to avoid it. Any Ideas? Thanks in advance for the help.

Answer 1

[Swarooph]

Its usually recommended to feed only smooth signals to derivative blocks for the same issue you are mentioning here. One way to avoid this is to use a smoothing filter (low pass) before the discrete derivative so that this sudden change is evened out. Depending on your application, a moving average kind of technique might also work.