  We consider minimal-rate sampling schemes for infinite streams of delayed and
weighted versions of a known pulse shape. The minimal sampling rate for these
parametric signals is referred to as the rate of innovation and is equal to the
number of degrees of freedom per unit time. Although sampling of infinite pulse
streams was treated in previous works, either the rate of innovation was not
achieved, or the pulse shape was limited to Diracs. In this paper we propose a
multichannel architecture for sampling pulse streams with arbitrary shape,
operating at the rate of innovation. Our approach is based on modulating the
input signal with a set of properly chosen waveforms, followed by a bank of
integrators. This architecture is motivated by recent work on sub-Nyquist
sampling of multiband signals. We show that the pulse stream can be recovered
from the proposed minimal-rate samples using standard tools taken from spectral
estimation in a stable way even at high rates of innovation. In addition, we
address practical implementation issues, such as reduction of hardware
complexity and immunity to failure in the sampling channels. The resulting
scheme is flexible and exhibits better noise robustness than previous
approaches.
