Biologically Enabled Non-Homogeneous Distributed Processing through Evaluation of Resources

Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposed to advance the new Biologically Enabled Distributed processing through Evaluation of Resources (BENDER) technology to address the U.S. Army need for ultra-low-power, on-the-fly reconfigurable signal processing solutions. Phase I work conclusively demonstrated BENDER’s feasibility through design, fabrication, and testing of a TRL 4 prototype. Specifically, development of the core operational software, evaluation of processor instruction set architecture (ISA) extensions, and network and processing element design were addressed. Using typical parallelizable algorithms, such as 2D fast Fourier transfers (FFTs), the system was proven capable of executing an FFT in parallel, far exceeding the Phase I goal of simulating this capability. In Phase II, POC will finalize a system-on-a-chip design suitable for transition to a foundry for fabrication. This will target development of a Phase II architecture (patterned closely on the Phase I design) suitable for transition to a chip-scale device. The Phase II BENDER will provide ultra-low-power operation and on-the-fly (<2–3 microsecond) network reconfiguration, be highly fault tolerant and self-healing, and support reconfiguration to any mix of processing cores to optimally fit end application goals. These capabilities support PEO Intelligence embedded electronics applications such as software-defined radios and soldier sensor systems.