Real-time processing of packetized time-sampled signals employing a systolic array

Claim 1

A real-time digital signal processing system for processing digital samples from a plurality of sensor signals, comprising: a) a source slotmap memory for storing a source slotmap indicating a number of copies of each digital sample, and order before processing; b) an output slotmap memory for storing an output slotmap indicating an order in which sensor signals are to be arranged when output from the system; c) a programmable multiplexer, coupled to the source slotmap memory, for receiving, duplicating, deleting, and arranging the digital samples and creating a data packet with the samples from a specific time period, according to the source slotmap; d) a systolic array having a plurality of digital signal processors (DSPs) arranged in cascading subsequent stages having: i. at least one front-end DSP in a first stage for receiving the data packet, for receiving commands to be sent to selected DSPs, for creating an augmented data packet having a portion of the data packet, the commands at locations within the augmented data packet corresponding to specified DSPs, and a status field for each DSP coupled to it, and for passing the augmented data packet to DSPs coupled to it; ii. at least one intermediate DSP functionally coupled to the front-end DSP for executing commands in the augmented data packet corresponding to it, processing the portion of the data packet which it receives into processed data, determining a status of its processing, updating the status field, replacing the data with the processed data, thereby creating an updated augmented data packet, and passing the updated augmented packet segment to a DSP of a subsequent stage, iii. at least one clean-up DSP in a last stage coupled to DSPs of a previous stage, and coupled to the output slotmap memory, for receiving the processed packet segments from the DSPs of the previous stage, and for creating a data packet having the processed packet segments of the DSPs arranged according to the output slotmap in the output slotmap memory.