I-Corps: Advancing Space Computing

Montana State University, Bozeman MT

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a radiation-tolerant computer for space and other applications. Radiation tolerance of electronic components is their ability to shield themselves from the radiation in their working environments. A single charged particle can knock thousands of electrons loose, causing electronic noise and signal spikes. In the case of digital circuits, this can cause results that are inaccurate or unintelligible. The goal for the proposed technology is to achieve the necessary levels of space computing technology reliability in the presence of radiation at a fraction of the cost of existing systems. The proposed technology is suitable for command and data handling tasks for small spacecraft that require lower performance but desire fault-tolerance. Modifications may be made to increase its performance by adding hardware accelerators. This higher performance version may be suitable for military and defense applications. The inclusion of malware mitigation may make the proposed technology applicable to critical infrastructure applications such as in the nation’s electrical grid, water treatment plants, and hospitals. Providing more reliable computers in these systems may lead to a more resilient infrastructure that will not fail when under stress. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a computer that is able to continue foreground operation in the presence of radiation-induced faults and repair faulted circuity in the background. The proposed technology takes advantage of reconfigurable commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts instead of “hardening” the underlying computer materials to prevent faults from occurring. The proposed approach expects faults to occur and provides a recovery procedure to mitigate their impact. By avoiding the expensive hardening process and using COTS parts, the cost of the proposed technology is reduced over existing solutions. The architecture used to recover from faults simultaneously provides the ability to embed advanced algorithm accelerators in the computer to increase its computational performance with greater power efficiency than existing solutions. This approach has been tested on numerous space demonstrations including small satellites, the International Space Station, and in 2024 it will travel to the lunar surface for its harshest test yet. The advancement in computation provided by this technology may enable future space missions with greater science return and deeper exploration of the galaxy by increasing spacecraft autonomy and real-time science data processing. In addition, an additional layer of fault intrusion defense obfuscates the computing hardware so that malware cyberattacks may be detected and defeated. This extends the use of this technology beyond space and into terrestrial applications such as the nation’s critical infrastructure that must withstand both environmentally induced faults and human initiated cyberattacks. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.