Next Generation Reconfigurable Field Programmable Gate Array

As the US DOD and other agencies continue to undertake ever-challenging missions, the performance of space On-Board Processing (OBP) is often the limiting factor on what is achievable for a given mission objective.  To meet this demand, the defense industry as a whole has increasingly incorporated advanced technologies to bridge the performance gap brought on by increasing sensor data production, limited downlink capacity, and the need for real-time battlespace situational awareness.  The use of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have contributed significantly in increase performance, but drawbacks such as radiation susceptibility, power consumption, floating-point processing overhead, and a challenging programming model make them suboptimal solutions for many critical DoD aerospace missions.  Multi-core processing architectures show significant potential to address this performance gap.  MAESTRO is a 49-core processor under development by Boeing using Radiation-Hardened by Design (RHBD) techniques funded by the NRO On-board Processing Expandable Reconfigurable Architecture (OPERA) program.  The program is only funding for the development of the OPERA processor, and for Phase I, SEAKR proposes to lay the groundwork for developing a flexible MAESTRO space qualified On-Board Processing (OBP) system. BENEFIT: As the US DOD and other agencies continue to undertake ever-challenging missions, the performance of space On-Board Processing (OBP) is often the limiting factor on what is achievable for a given mission objective.  To meet this demand, the defense industry as a whole has increasingly incorporated advanced technologies to bridge the performance gap brought on by increasing sensor data production, limited downlink capacity, and the need for real-time battlespace situational awareness.  The use of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have contributed significantly in increase performance, but drawbacks such as radiation susceptibility, power consumption, floating-point processing overhead, and a challenging programming model make them suboptimal solutions for many critical DoD aerospace missions.  Multi-core processing architectures show significant potential to address this performance gap.  MAESTRO is a 49-core processor under development by Boeing using Radiation-Hardened by Design (RHBD) techniques funded by the NRO On-board Processing Expandable Reconfigurable Architecture (OPERA) program.  The program is only funding for the development of the OPERA processor, and for Phase I, SEAKR proposes to lay the groundwork for developing a flexible MAESTRO space qualified On-Board Processing (OBP) system.