Software and Programming



    In essence, the software portion of this project consists of implementing the chain of bandpass filters, that constitute the core of our spectrum analyzer.
Initially, we intended to have the spectrum analyzer operate in real-time, i.e. process a sample of input through the filters before the next sampled input arrives. However, we encountered two important issues with the hardware used, which eliminated the possibility of real-time signal processing:

In effect, these two constraints resulted in a maximum usable sampling frequency of approximately 9000 Hz, or about one sample every 0.11 ms. This time interval proved insufficient for chaining several bandpass filters together, as the neccesary computation overhead incurred by the filters would exceed the alloted 0.11 ms. Because of this, we opted for an offline processing of input signals. The general outline of the program is as follows:
  1. 1. Sample input signal, sampling frequency = 9 kHz.
  2. 2. Take about 250 samples and store them in RAM (the number of samples depends on available memory space).
  3. 3. Call subroutine DiffEq on the samples to compute the filter output.
  4. 4. Determine if filtered output amplitude is above treshold. Repeat for all 250 samples. Store number of outputs (counts) above threshold.
  5. 5. Loop at #3 and #4 until all samples have been processed by all filters.
  6. 6. Compare stored count values to a predefined number. If count is greater than number, then frequency is present in original signal.
  7. 7. Output results.


    The subroutine DiffEq (short for Difference Equation) basically implements the difference equation described in the 'Filter Concepts' section. The coefficients required by the difference equation is supplied by an include file, "Coeffs. asm."   This contains 101 coefficients each for the 8 FIR bandpass filters constituting the spectrum analyser.  The filter frequencies are centered at: 200Hz, 400Hz, 600Hz, 800Hz, 1000Hz, 1200Hz, 1400Hz and 1600Hz.   These coefficients were obtained from MATLAB, and hard-coded into program memory.

    Finally, thresholding was implemented, to establishe a basis for determining the relative strengths of the selected frequencies in a signal.  This became more essential later in our project when we observed that cascading bandpass filters produced regions of 'filter overlap.'  The overlaps in the frequency responses  produce frequencies of intermediate strength not really present in the original input signal (please see section entitled 'Results').   In our design, we decided to set all the threshold levels as equal, somewhere around 20% of the full swing voltage.  This low threshold value provides the resolution needed at all frequency points of interest.
 

State Transition Diagram