Product category:
Design and Development Hardware
News Release from: Kane Computing | Subject: SignalWizard
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 12 January 2007
Filter design products need no DSP
expertise
SignalWizard 2.5 brings the power of digital signal processing to any audio-bandwidth domain that requires electronic signal filtering.
Kane Computing has recently signed an exclusive distribution agreement with EZFIR to sell the SignalWizard family of real-time filter design products in Europe SignalWizard 2.5 brings the power of digital signal processing to any audio-bandwidth domain that requires electronic signal filtering
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 10 Apr 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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Applications include audio signal processing, sensor signal conditioning, signal analysis, vibration analysis, education and research in electrical, electronic and other physical sciences.
The SignalWizard is a total-solution package.
Due to its flexibility, it is particularly well suited to the real-time processing of audio signals.
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High quality analogue signal conditioning and a stereo 24bit resolution codec provide extremely high resolution, sufficient for the most demanding applications.
Gregory Kovacs, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University USA, said "I got everything running and it is simply marvellous".
"The system reflects deep thought, design talent, and meticulous implementation".
"I love it".
"Overall, I'm super impressed".
"The ability to so rapidly prototype filters is amazing".
Richard White, Managing Director of Kane Computing, felt this unique product package would be the ideal low cost design package for many of the company's signal processing customers in the UK and Europe.
The main product is the SignalWizard 2.5 Kit, which includes hardware and software providing a unique, integrated system for designing, downloading and running very high performance filters in real-time.
It includes the high-level PC-based software interface that designs the filter according to the user's requirements, a hardware module based on an advanced digital signal processor and a low-level firmware operating system that implements the filtering operations.
Once designed, an integrated software interface is used to download the filter to the hardware module via a serial link where it is executed on demand.
Most important, the system requires no knowledge of digital signal processing (DSP) theory on the part of the user, or of the mathematics associated with digital filter design.
New features of version 2.5 include true stand-alone operation (without PC) once configured, IIR and adaptive filters, true dual channel operation, impulse response import, real or complex frequency response import, delay options for in/out and FIR filter modes, real-time spectrum analyser, dual channel sinewave generator, arbitrary function generator.
The SignalWizard Hardware Module Kit connects to a PC via a standard serial (RS232) link.
Essentially, the module comprises signal pre- and post-conditioning circuitry, a high-resolution stereo codec, a high-speed DSP device, memory, timing and control subsystems.
The 24bit oversampling stereo codec system is configurable by the user to any one of twelve sample rates, ranging from 48kHz down to 4kHz.
In terms of input signal frequency ranges, this equates to 24kHz down to 2kHz.
The codec accepts or generates a 2V peak-to-peak signal.
The power of the hardware module depends on its own operating system, which is invisible to the user, but communicates with the PC software.
The SignalWizard PC Software performs the following major functions: it designs the filter according to the user's specifications.
The filter is expressed as a set of FIR coefficients or taps, IIR coefficients or as an adaptive expression.
Collectively, the coefficients of a filter are known as the impulse response.
It converts the floating-point representation of the coefficients to 24bit fractional arithmetic (again, this is invisible to the user).
It automatically downloads the low-level firmware operating system to the hardware via a serial link.
It automatically communicates with the firmware embedded in the digital system to download the filter coefficients via the same serial link.
It allows the user to alter the system's gain, sampling rate and delay during run-time.
It allows the user to switch instantaneously between a filtered or nonfiltered signal at run-time.
Most important, the software includes a flexible filter design section, a window that displays the frequency or impulse response of the realised filter in various formats, and a hardware control section for downloading a filter and generally communicating with the filter module.
The SignalWizard Hardware Module Kit and the SignalWizard PC Software can be purchased as separate items. Request a free brochure from Kane Computing ...
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