The University of Queensland School of Information Technology

The University of Queensland School of Information Technology & Electrical Engineering Reconfigurable Linux for Spaceflight Applications John Williams and Neil Bergmann, School of ITEE The University of Queensland, Australia Future space missions will demand Reconfigurable Linux refers to the use of unprecedented levels of on-board computing, beyond traditional roles such as avionics and spacecraft management. Applications such as virtual presence and telerobotics, and real time data analysis and reduction, will call for more general purpose computing resources. They will also require orders of magnitude performance increases over presentday space computing systems. embedded Linux on reconfigurable computing platforms utilising either hard or soft processor cores, with customisations that integrate the logic fabric into the operating system. We have previously ported the Linux kernel to the Xilinx Microblaze soft processor core, providing source-level portability with desktop Linux systems, on a reconfigurable computer. Existing scientific codes can be compiled and run on this platform with little or no modification. Reconfigurable computing has been often identified as an enabling technology for such next-generation spaceflight computing systems. High performance, fault-tolerance, design flexibility and reuse, and postdeployment functional re-targeting are characteristics that support this view. However much of this potential remains untapped. A reconfigurable operating system forms a contract between the system hardware and the application developer. Previous spaceflight applications of reconfigurable logic typically are very tightly coupled to surrounding systems and circuitry. A general purpose platform requires a broader, more flexible development and deployment environment. MAPLD 2004 Our ongoing research focuses on extending Requirements of a Reconfigurable Operating System • support sequential (processor-based) execution; • offer interoperability with existing general purpose computing infrastructure; • provide a process model that seamlessly supports hardware, software, and hybrid processes; • provide a logic management interface; • support integration of hardware components developed in a variety of tool flows; • be scaleable, supporting single-chip, multi-chip and multi-board computing systems. Reconfigurable Linux to meet the requirements outlined above. Previous experimental work has demonstrated self-reconfiguring Linux systems, with the logic fabric mapped as an operating system resource. Other work includes integration of a hardware process model into the Linux kernel. Widespread acceptance of reconfigurable computing for space applications requires a flexible, broad based operating system. Linux is a natural platform upon which to build the next generation of advanced spaceflight computing systems.