This paper presents a complete system that can be used to measure and to st imulate sucking abilities of premature babies. The system integrates measurement and stimulation capabilities that can be used separately or toge ther. The sensing unit includes mainly a pressure sensor, a conditioning circuit and a microcont roller device. The stimulation unit includes a miniature and lo w-cost pneumatic pump, an electro-valve, and a onditioning circuit. The microcontroller is shared by both units. The system’s software includes a routine that is used to define the waveform parameters of the synthesized pressure signals, a wavelet based routine that is used to process measurement data and a software component to perform fault detection and diagnosis. The system capabilities include self-calibration and se lf-testing. Throughout the paper several im plementation details and experimental results will be presented and discussed.

Keywords: Sucking pressure measurement, sucking stimulation, premature babies