Patent attributes
In a data acquisition system that captures signal data from one or more input channels, the signal data are compressed prior to transfer or storage. Compression allows the data acquisition system to effectively store more captured signal data in a given amount of memory. The data transfer interface of the data acquisition system requires less bandwidth for transfer of compressed data than for uncompressed data. The compression operations may be performed in real time. The data acquisition system may include one or more analog-to-digital converters to sample analog signals received over the input channels to produce the sampled data for compression. The compressed data are transferred to a processor where they are decompressed prior processing or analysis. This abstract does not limit the scope of the invention as described in the claims.