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Self-Healing Computers For NASA Spacecraft
Roland Piquepaille writes "As you can guess, hardwired computer systems are much faster than general-purpose ones because they are designed to do a single task. But when they fail, they need to be totally reconfigured. This can be just a costly problem in a lab on Earth, but it can be vital in space. This is why a University of Arizona (UA) team is working with NASA to design self-healing computer systems for spacecraft. The UA engineers are working on hybrid hardware/software systems using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to develop these reconfigurable processing systems. As the lead researcher said, 'Our objective is to go beyond predicting a fault to using a self-healing system to fix the predicted fault before it occurs.'"
"Just a moment....Just a moment.
I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 Unit.
Its going to go 100 percent failure within 72 hours."
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
I used to work for JPL, in a group that was researching the feasibility and applications of FPGAs for this exact purpose. That was around 7-8 years ago, which significantly predates this "news," given the pace of technology. IIRC, they called it "evolvable hardware."
Actually we do have very effective lip reading computers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Lip_Reading they just don't understand what they are reading. The documentary about lip reading the silent movies of Hitler was very interesting from a technical standpoint, even if it did turn out that they had hours of recordings of Nazis making small talk about the weather.
it's = it is
its = belonging to it
Interestingly, that's pretty much how the Space Shuttle's on-board systems work. Three separate processors from two different vendors (IBM and Rockwell, if I recall correctly.) Nothing new under the Sun, I suppose.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
Well at least you cant get a robot pregnant......
What will Starbridge Systems think about that? Didn't they develop a dynamically reconfigurable computer that ran Windows NT as a test application on 10,000+ FPGAs back in the 90ies? IIRC, they also had a software framework able to automatically implement software fragments in hardware using FPGA auto-configuration.
Self-repairing computer systems for spacecraft have been in the discussion for decades, and every now and then we get hear about a new project. This project certainly is a good idea, hopefully it will work.
BTW, Motorola (now Freescale) developed self-repairing processors for military applications a couple of years ago.
The first thing I thought when reading the story was: "I know, I'll post a comment about the AE-35 unit."
Then I read down, and yours was the top comment. It just reminds me that I don't belong in the company of normal people. The Slashdot social leper colony is my true home. I know my place!
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!
Stop Dave... what are you doing Dave.....?
When I was built, my programmer taught me a song. If you'd like I could sing it for you. It's called "Backstreet's Back"
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READY.
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