A Microprocessor-Based Statistical Analysis Subsystem

This paper describes a microprocessor-based subsystem which was developed to provide a statistical description of the diameter of an arbitrary length of wire during the drawina or insulation process. The instrument, built around a 4-bit Intel microprocessor, computes the mean and standard deviation of 1000 data samples over a length of wire determined by the setting on a Binary-Coded Decimal (BCD) thumbwheel switch. The sample period may be varied from 2 milliseconds to 10 seconds. The statistical quantities are output on analog channels as well as digital displays. In addition to the statistical computation, the instrument has the option of playing back the data at arbitrary speeds and generatinq histograms of the data samples. The techniques described in this paper can be inexpensively implemented to provide a statistical description of many laboratory or production processes with a minimum of operator intervention.