Signal processing and waves graphing acceleration using FPGA

Abstract

FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and the description of custom HW (Hardware) are tools used for the enhancement of embedded applications, by abstracting exigent iterative tasks out of a processor and towards dedicated HW modules. This project contemplates the development of custom HWD (Hardware Description) in Verilog HDL (Hardware Description Language) for the acceleration of a signal wave graphing embedded system that performs the acquisition, processing and rasterization algorithms. A graphing module is described which provides the capability to intercept video interfaces, such as VGA or digital RGB, and overlay multiple wave graphs from raw data, with configurable characteristics. The development process of this project allowed the comparison of a wave graphing system based on a soft-processor, with accelerated designs using custom HWD for data acquisition and graphing. Results show that in addition to performance, the HWD modules offer lower power consumption and ease of implementation.