A comparison of field programmable gate arrays and digital signal processors in acoustic array processing.

Date

2006-07-29T16:28:42Z

Authors

Stevenson, Jeremy C.

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Abstract

The Field Programmable Gate Array's (FPGA) constant growth in computing power has given embedded system developers a choice to replace their current processors with a FPGA. However, most systems continue to use the original processor due to familiarity and design speed. Design tools, such as Simulink for MATLAB, have created a potential for significantly reducing FPGA development time. This potential was explored by developing an acoustic array processing system on both a FPGA and a DSP (Digital Signal Processor). The system includes a filtering stage, a correlation stage, and a trigonometric math stage. All of these stages are computationally intensive which provide an accurate portrayal of the chips' capabilities. The paper documents the comparison of the FPGA and the DSP implementations in regards to the performance of each implementation, the design time of each implementation and the capability of the design tools used in each implementation.

Description

Includes bibliographical references (p. 48).

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