Portable electrophysiologic monitoring based on the OMAP-family processor from a beginners´ prospective

We present here the experiences made on taking some first steps into the world of dual-core embedded processor technology. The processors we consider here consist of one DSP core and one general-purpose ARM core as are commonly used today by large mobile phone manufacturers. We describe some beginner´s problems we encountered with Texas Instruments´ OMAP platform and suggest some ways to avoid these common pitfalls for others. As an example application, we also introduce a new portable biosignal monitoring device that was the motivation for using a dual-core embedded processor in the first place.