March 2, 2009

The Radiant EDU has an oscilloscope port which can power a small sensor board and transfer its measurements to the host computer for display. We have now created a smaller version of this sensor board with its own microcontroller that plugs directly into the computer and powers itself from the USB port. It is 64 times more sensitive and 25 times faster than the EDU Sensor Board, making it a valuable research tool.

Radiant's USB Sensor Board combines the RC1-166A Sensor Die and its associated charge amplifier with a USB controller and an Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) on the same PC board. The USB controller is the same as the processor on the EDU and internal to all Radiant USB testers. The circuit draws its power from the 5V supply of the USB cable. The ADC is an Analog Devices AD7899 14-bit converter that can run at up to 400 kilosamples per second. The microprocessor can clock the AD7899 at speeds up to 250KHz. Most importantly, the microprocessor is USB2.0 capable, making it as fast as your USB flash key memory. It can upload sensor data to the host computer as fast as the ADC can generate it!

We have separated the Oscilloscope function of the EDU into a separate program to run the FX2-RC1 Sensor Board. Its controls are the same as for the EDU. See Using Sensors with the Radiant EDU.

Below I show my pulse at the left wrist measured with the USB Sensor Board. The same measurement taken with the EDU Sensor Board is shown on Radiant's Components page. The measurement using the USB Sensor Board was taken at a frequency twice as fast as with the EDU Sensor Board and it has much finer detail.

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