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Using Simulated Partial Dynamic Run-Time Reconfiguration to Share Embedded FPGA Compute and Power Resources across a Swarm of Unpiloted Airborne Vehicles

EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems volume 2007, Article number: 048521 (2007) Cite this article

Abstract

We show how the limited electrical power and FPGA compute resources available in a swarm of small UAVs can be shared by moving FPGA tasks from one UAV to another. A software and hardware infrastructure that supports the mobility of embedded FPGA applications on a single FPGA chip and across a group of networked FPGA chips is an integral part of the work described here. It is shown how to allocate a single FPGA's resources at run time and to share a single device through the use of application checkpointing, a memory controller, and an on-chip run-time reconfigurable network. A prototype distributed operating system is described for managing mobile applications across the swarm based on the contents of a fuzzy rule base. It can move applications between UAVs in order to equalize power use or to enable the continuous replenishment of fully fueled planes into the swarm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Reconfigurable Computing Laboratory, School of Computer and Information Science, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Boulevard, Mawson Lakes, South Australia, 5095, Australia

    David Kearney & Mark Jasiunas

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  1. David Kearney
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  2. Mark Jasiunas
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Correspondence to David Kearney.

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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Kearney, D., Jasiunas, M. Using Simulated Partial Dynamic Run-Time Reconfiguration to Share Embedded FPGA Compute and Power Resources across a Swarm of Unpiloted Airborne Vehicles. J Embedded Systems 2007, 048521 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1155/ES/2007/48521

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