Photogrammetric Coprocessor

To work efficiently, the flight crew of an extended duration spaceflight will need an on board device for manipulating and processing large scale (Megaplxel) image data in real time or "interactively". For large scale high resolution photographs, this interactive capability requires processing capabilities (greater than 1 Billion Instructions per Second) that at present can be met only by dedicated, expensive and bulky supercomputers. A solution to this problem would be the development of a photogrammetric coprocessor for use with industry standard microprocessors. All photogrammetric functions would be off loaded to this coprocessor. The main technical objective of the Phase 1 research and development effort will be to design this photogrammetric coprocessor using state of the art Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) and Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) technologies and devices. Phase 2 R&D will be the actual development of the photogrammetric coprocessor and the incorporation of this coprocessor into an on board megapixel interactive image processing prototype. This prototype will be the basis for an on board imaging workstation. Another NASA application would be the use of this technology for inexpensive ground based real time megapixel image processing.