A real time programmable digital filter for biomedical signal enhancement incorporating a high-level design interface

A simple but highly integrated digital signal processing system is described for real time filtering of biomedical signals. It includes the necessary processing and communications hardware, the processing code itself and a high-level software interface that enables the user to design and download arbitrary finite impulse response filters to the run-time system. The filter coefficients are calculated using the frequency sampling method. Since the filters are realized using a finite impulse response, no phase distortion is introduced into the processed signals. A unique feature of the design is the manner in which the software and hardware components have been organized as an intelligent system, obviating on the part of the user a detailed knowledge of filter design theory or any abilities in processor architecture and assembly code programming.