Development of an embedded system platform for signal analysis and processing

Abstract: Information is often stored and transmitted through electrical signals. This information may need refinement, which may be done by processing and altering the electrical signals, in which it is transmitted. When refining a signal, a frequency selective filter is often used. It can be implemented through digital signal processing (DSP). DSP is a concept where signals are refined using a digital compute system. Digital systems are designed to replace their analog counterpart, mitigating their flaws in scalability, complexity and cost. A DSP system is typically implemented using software on a small computer, while analog systems are implemented through various electronic components. The objective of this project is to design a DSP system that filters analog input data using automatically synthesised filters from user-defined input specifications. The DSP system is implemented using a microcontroller. The system designed the filters and found the filter coefficients. It then uses analog to digital converter (ADC) to sample an input signal and applies the filter. Lastly, it uses the digital to analog converter (DAC) to reconstruct a filtered, analog result. A user interface is not designed for the system, and only a limited number of filters are implemented. However, the system is successful in designing filters and finding their coefficients.