Patent ID: 8061607

Claim:
Signal detection apparatus comprising: microcontroller and associated memory comprising a part of a base unit portion of a multi-use signal detector wherein the base unit of said detection apparatus is adapted for use with at least one of a plurality of different types of plug-in modules; and at least one plug-in module interfacing with the microcontroller of said base unit, said plug-in module comprising circuitry for assisting a given signal detection task and memory including function routines accessible by and used by said microcontroller in completing a given signal detection task; and said microcontroller, during an initialization routine initiated upon interfacing a plug-in module with a base unit, performs at least one of (a) storing stores the address of functional routines contained in the memory portion of said given plug-in module and (b) downloading at least one of any functional routines contained in the memory portion of said given module.