'm part of the Data Acquisition subgroup of Project Phoenix, a group
working on an open source blood pressure monitor.

I'm trying to figure out what surface-mount microcontrollers we could
use.  I need to figure out what our options are before I decide what
programmer to get.

Page 2 in the following PPT presentation shows what kind of input the
microcontroller needs to process:
http://www.phoenix.tc-ieee.org/0001_Bibliography/2007-05-24%20EMB%20Presentation/2-Carl-Sensors_20070520_Phoenix%20Sensor2.ppt

Basically, there are two pulses from two sensors.  The systolic blood
pressure we're measuring is a function of the time difference between
the peaks of the two pulses.  The diastolic blood pressure we're
measuring is a function of the time difference between the troughs of
the two pulses.

Does this application require a DSPIC, or would a regular
microcontroller suffice?  So far, my DSP background has been entirely
theoretical.  Whatever we use, the microcontroller must take samples
at a very high rate so that the exact timing of the peaks and troughs
is accurate.  A sample rate that is too low would make the timing of
the peaks and troughs very inaccurate.  I believe that this
application calls for a DSPIC due to the need to take and analyze data
from so many samples.  Am I correct, or am I way off base?

If this application requires a DSPIC, are there any simple DSP
projects I could try to get some practice?  Again, I am new to using
DSP in a circuit.


-- 
Jason Hsu
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt.html
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt-c.txt
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt-asm.txt
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