A Mobile High Performance Computing System for Deployment in the Field

Reconfigurable computing systems offer many benefits over the traditional approach to system design for unmanned autonomous systems and other military vehicles. These systems can offer high performance while requiring significantly less power than high end servers and graphics processing units (GPUs). These systems are also preferred because they can meet very stringent space and weight requirements for both manned and unmanned vehicles that are deployed in the battlefield. Reconfigurable modules can be reused for systems containing a diverse range of sensors, cameras, displays, GPS receivers, etc. They can provide capabilities during the mission that were unknown prior to the beginning of the mission. Because of the unpredictable nature of combat, this capability is significant and offers not only increased flexibility, but also high performance in the event of unexpected threats. Additionally, these systems can be used to build a high-performance computing system at a fraction of the cost of supercomputers or high end compute servers while significantly reducing power requirements. This proposal involves the basic research required for the development and implementation of mobile high performance computing (MHPC) systems1. Our RC-based MHPC system can be reused in various manned and unmanned vehicles (air, ground, or sea) with a wide range of sensors. These mobile units can be deployed on the battlefield far enough away from active battle regions, but close enough to be accessed by key military personnel. Tasks with high computational requirements can be offloaded into these MHPCs to gain key strategic advantages over adversaries based on simulations of a large number of potential scenarios. Additionally, theses MHPCs change position regularly, making them difficult to track. The key enabling technology of the MHPC is a reconfigurable processor board containing programmable hardware that allows the same programmable hardware to be reused for systems with radically different interfaces and sensor types while providing additional onboard processing power and programmable communication protocols. With the RC-based system, sensor data processing and communication protocols can be readily altered even in the middle of a mission to combat attacks to the system imposed unexpectedly by a hostile enemy. Additionally, algorithm enhancements developed after the commencement of a mission can be deployed rapidly by downloading the new hardware configuration into the programmable system boards. As an outcome of this research, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT) will be able to demonstrate 10-100X speedup of various HPC algorithms in support of military systems. The institution will develop a RARE resource that can be accessed from a remote site while achieving high performance and require relatively less power as compared to a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU). This is an emulation of a mobile high-performance computing system. Experiments conducted by RARE researchers will continue to verify that REMOTE HARDWARE versions of specific computation-intensive algorithms can complete execution significantly faster than LOCAL SOFTWARE versions of the same algorithm. Additionally, students involved in the project will be introduced to potential careers in the DOD.