Multichannel real-time analysis of the clinical EEG on a dual microprocessor system

• Published in: Journal of clinical engineering Vol. 9; no. 3; p. 213
• Main Authors: Barr, R E, Bashyam, A J, Palem, K V, Norwood, P C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-07-1984
• Subjects: Computers; Data Display; Electroencephalography - instrumentation; Evaluation Studies as Topic; Microcomputers; United States; United States
• ISSN: 0363-8855
• DOI: 10.1097/00004669-198407000-00003

A dual microprocessor system has been developed as an aid to conventional visual analysis of the EEG. Up to eight channels of EEG gathered from any standard EEG strip-chart machine can be processed in real time. The analysis is performed on a dual microprocessor "pipe-line" configuration that is built using Motorola 68000 (16-bit) and 6809 (8-bit) microprocessors. The system is basically software oriented in order to offer processing flexibility. The 16-bit processor is dedicated to the critical task of signal analysis based on a newly developed period-peak algorithm. The 8-bit processor is dedicated to the pre- and post-processing tasks, including statistical generations and display control. Analysis results for each channel are displayed on a video terminal in several convenient graphical formats.