You scare me,
Av!
I wanted to know if there were any guidelines on how one would pick a (micro/computer) processor to base an avionic system around. I have to design one for a university course. I have estimated the amount of data it will have to handle (per second) but I am still hazy on *what* it will have to do with it; and I need a guideline on what assumptions I can make based on, say, if I had to do complex tasks like curve fitting, or Digital signal processing or making relational models.
I could easily pick the latest processor off the shelf and it is more than likely it would do the job with half of its transistors taking a nap, but I need to justify why I picked it; also I wouldn't want to pick something a thousand times as powerful as the task at hand - why waste money (rare these days) and power (you can never draw too little unless switched off)?
I know this may not be the ideal place designers hang out at (we all secretly dream of being in the hangar) but it is worth a shot...