A Novel Approach To Real-Time Wave Processing

The hardware and software architecture of a system that performs real-time wave processing from pressure or acceleration or sea surface displacement is described. On-board time and frequency domain data processing is accomplished by low-power microcomputers running software written in an interpretive high level language called VPL (Vector Processing Language). The unique feature of this firmware design approach is the ability of the user of the instrument to customize not only the calibration coefficients of the sensors, but also the signal processing algorithms. This ability to customize the system allows the same hardware to be used for a wide range of applications, including data compression for real-time transmission of representative data products, offshore civil engineering studies, etc.