A system for characterizing a compressed sensing apparatus is described which broadly includes a random vector generator for generating an input vector, a waveform generator in communication with the random vector generator for converting the input vector into an analog signal, a compressed sensing apparatus in communication with the digital-to-analog converter for determining a digital bit stream from the analog signal, a serial-to-parallel converter for converting the digital bit stream into an input vector; and an electronic processor in communication with the random number generator and the serial-to-parallel converter configured for determining a compressed sensing matrix.