A microcomputer-based data acquisition system with hardware capabilities to calculate a fast Fourier transform

The fast Fourier transform (FFT) has in recent years become an important tool to the engineer. There are a number of algorithms which calculate the FFT. One such algorithm is the Cooley-Tukey FFT algorithm (radix-2) which lends itself rather easily to a combination software and hardware implementation. With a micro-computer as the controller of a data acquisition module and hardware which computes the butterfly associated with the FFT algorithm, the FFT can be calculated efficiently.