Abstract: The system measures the pressure pulses in an upper body peripheral artery and produces an electrical signal which represents the contours of these pulses. It then digitizes the signal and synthesizes the pressure pulses in the ascending aorta using either a frequency-domain or a time-domain calculation method. Next, the system separately averages the signals corresponding to the measured pulses and those corresponding to the synthesized pulses, and forms for each an "average pulse." The system identifies the wave foot in each of the average pulses, identifies the incisura in the average peripheral pulse, determines the amount of time associated with systole and, based on this time, segments the synthesized pulse into systolic and diastolic components.