Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer
Robust Multicore Middleware
Project Description
Emerging radiation-hardened and commercial space-capable processors are leveraging general-purpose multicore and niche-application cores to satisfy the ever increasing onboard processing demands required by planned NASA missions. Such architectures can provide increased processing bandwidth and power efficiency for onboard processing applications. However, these advantages come at the cost of increased hardware and software complexity and decreased fault tolerance in the case of commercial technology. As software development is a major cost driver for missions, this increased complexity has the potential to significantly increase cost for future missions. In addition, maintaining mission assurance and fault tolerance is critical. To address these risks, Troxel Aerospace Industries, Inc. (Troxel Aerospace) proposes to continue develop and commercialize a robust middleware management technology for spacecraft heterogeneous multicore processing systems. The middleware technology will enable a fault tolerant computing environment that is portable to different processors and is largely transparent to mission applications executing upon the middleware to provide a standardized, resource-aware, fault tolerant interface for configuration management and heterogeneous resource allocation. This Phase II will include developing the remainder of the middleware, executing a representative application using it across two or three different processor architectures, undertaking a heavy-ion radiation test campaign to quantify its effectiveness in a relevant mission environment, and continuing the commercialization activities begun in Phase I.
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Anticipated Benefits
The technology under development addresses NASA�s key avionics goals including improved reliability and fault tolerance, increased autonomy, reduced size, weight and power (SWaP), and commonality across spaceflight and ground processing systems put forth in the NASA Crosscutting Technology Roadmap. The technology also enables long-duration crewed missions, space-based observatories, and solar system exploration will require highly reliable, fault-tolerant systems. Communication delays, the challenging orbital dynamics of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), and extreme science missions require increased autonomy for on-board decision infrastructures. Future robotic missions will involve greater complexity and reactivity, which will require increased reliance on autonomy (i.e. advanced onboard processing). Deep-space missions that target active, dynamic, or time-varying phenomena will need robots that can adaptively adjust their configurations and behavior to changing circumstances, and robustly handle uncertainty. Robotic missions to NEAs will require the decision-making and monitoring processes�currently performed by ground control�to be performed by onboard autonomous systems. Advanced avionics technologies and approaches are needed to support these challenging missions and are enabled by Troxel Aerospace�s Robust Multicore Middleware.
All non-NASA government and commercial space customers will directly benefit from the technology by obtaining increased onboard processing capability at reduced budget and SWaP cost for such applications as autonomous operations, improved mission processing, and downlink bandwith management. These features will are enticing to a variety of spacecraft markets including telecommunications, commercial imagery, launch vehicles, ISS re-service vehicles and exo-planetary commercial ventures (e.g. asteroid mining). The small satellite market will be of great interest given their early adoption of modern multicore technology and desperate need to improve system fault tolerance. Also, non-space markets that require robust fault tolerance on high-performance multicore processors will also be served by the middleware including: radiation test facilities (e.g. CERN), medical radiation therapy facilities, and other critical performance markets where people�s lives or expensive equipment is at risk such as aircraft, automobile, public transportation, and advanced manufacturing where the same processors targeted by the proposed effort (e.g. ARM-based processors and GPU co-processors) are already deployed. Troxel Aerospace plans to capture all these markets by following its proven commercialization strategy, i.e. through partnerships with vendors and primes who already supply processors to these missions and customers. More »
All non-NASA government and commercial space customers will directly benefit from the technology by obtaining increased onboard processing capability at reduced budget and SWaP cost for such applications as autonomous operations, improved mission processing, and downlink bandwith management. These features will are enticing to a variety of spacecraft markets including telecommunications, commercial imagery, launch vehicles, ISS re-service vehicles and exo-planetary commercial ventures (e.g. asteroid mining). The small satellite market will be of great interest given their early adoption of modern multicore technology and desperate need to improve system fault tolerance. Also, non-space markets that require robust fault tolerance on high-performance multicore processors will also be served by the middleware including: radiation test facilities (e.g. CERN), medical radiation therapy facilities, and other critical performance markets where people�s lives or expensive equipment is at risk such as aircraft, automobile, public transportation, and advanced manufacturing where the same processors targeted by the proposed effort (e.g. ARM-based processors and GPU co-processors) are already deployed. Troxel Aerospace plans to capture all these markets by following its proven commercialization strategy, i.e. through partnerships with vendors and primes who already supply processors to these missions and customers. More »
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Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Troxel Aerospace Industries, Inc. | Lead Organization | Industry | Gainesville, Florida |
| Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) | Supporting Organization | FFRDC/UARC | Pasadena, California |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
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California
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Florida
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