The 3D laser radar vision processor system

Loral Defense Systems (LDS) developed a 3D Laser Radar Vision Processor system capable of detecting, classifying, and identifying small mobile targets as well as larger fixed targets using three dimensional laser radar imagery for use with a robotic type system. This processor system is designed to interface with the NASA Johnson Space Center in-house Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) Retriever robot program and provide to it needed information so it can fetch and grasp targets in a space-type scenario

Multiprocessor graphics computation and display using transputers

A package of two-dimensional graphics routines was developed to run on a transputer-based parallel processing system. These routines were designed to enable applications programmers to easily generate and display results from the transputer network in a graphic format. The graphics procedures were designed for the lowest possible network communication overhead for increased performance. The routines were designed for ease of use and to present an intuitive approach to generating graphics on the transputer parallel processing system

Implementing tuple space on transputer meshes

Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, towards a partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Johannesburg 1991This report describes and evaluates an implementation of the Linda tuple space abstraction on Transputer networks. There is evidence that suggests a need for a new programming methodology to support Transputer-based applications, and Linda, as an attractive and elegant alternative to existing methodologies, has great potential for this role. The research focuses on the implementation of a particular tuple space model, intermediate uniform distribution, on Transputer meshes. The objective of the research is to ascertain the extent of the communication overheads inherent in the implementation and hence evaluate the feasibility of the approach. The overheads are measured relative to message passing performance on native Transputer networks, and are shown to be significant. It is concluded that although the specific tuple space model is not ideally suited to Transputer-based systems and the implementation, as it stands, is too inefficient to be of practical use, the approach requires further exploration in order to exhaust its full research potential.MT201

Parallel algorithms for the solution of elliptic and parabolic problems on transputer networks

This thesis is a study of the implementation of parallel algorithms for solving elliptic and parabolic partial differential equations on a network of transputers. The thesis commences with a general introduction to parallel processing. Here a discussion of the various ways of introducing parallelism in computer systems and the classification of parallel architectures is presented. In chapter 2, the transputer architecture and the associated language OCCAM are described. The transputer development system (TDS) is also described as well as a short account of other transputer programming languages. Also, a brief description of the methodologies for programming transputer networks is given. The chapter is concluded by a detailed description of the hardware used for the research. [Continues.

Distributed Finite Element Analysis Using a Transputer Network

The principal objective of this research effort was to demonstrate the extraordinarily cost effective acceleration of finite element structural analysis problems using a transputer-based parallel processing network. This objective was accomplished in the form of a commercially viable parallel processing workstation. The workstation is a desktop size, low-maintenance computing unit capable of supercomputer performance yet costs two orders of magnitude less. To achieve the principal research objective, a transputer based structural analysis workstation termed XPFEM was implemented with linear static structural analysis capabilities resembling commercially available NASTRAN. Finite element model files, generated using the on-line preprocessing module or external preprocessing packages, are downloaded to a network of 32 transputers for accelerated solution. The system currently executes at about one third Cray X-MP24 speed but additional acceleration appears likely. For the NASA selected demonstration problem of a Space Shuttle main engine turbine blade model with about 1500 nodes and 4500 independent degrees of freedom, the Cray X-MP24 required 23.9 seconds to obtain a solution while the transputer network, operated from an IBM PC-AT compatible host computer, required 71.7 seconds. Consequently, the $80,000 transputer network demonstrated a cost-performance ratio about 60 times better than the$15,000,000 Cray X-MP24 system

Molecular dynamics simulation on a parallel computer.

For the purpose of molecular dynamics simulations of large biopolymers we have built a parallel computer with a systolic loop architecture, based on Transputers as computational units, and have programmed it in Occam 11. The computational nodes of the computer are linked together in a systolic ring. The program based on this .topology for large biopolymers increases its computational throughput nearly linearly with the number of computational nodes. The program developed is closely related to the simulation programs CHARMM and XPLOR, the input files required (force field, protein structure file, coordinates) and output files generated (sets of atomic coordinates representing dynamic trajectories and energies) are compatible with the corresponding files of these programs. Benchmark results of simulations of biopolymers comprising 66, 568, 3 634, 5 797 and 12 637 atoms are compared with XPLOR simulations on conventional computers (Cray, Convex, Vax). These results demonstrate that the software and hardware developed provide extremely cost effective biopolymer simulations. We present also a simulation (equilibrium of X-ray structure) of the complete photosynthetic reaction center of Rhodopseudomonus viridis (12 637 atoms). The simulation accounts for the Coulomb forces exactly, i.e. no cut-off had been assumed

Capstan drive transport system for motion picture film

The work presented describes the development of a capstan drive system for the transport of motion picture film. From a model description of the plant and computer aided system design analysis, control algorithms are formulated. The work shows how these relativity complex control algorithms are implemented by making use of the parallel processing capabilities of the transputer. A critical investigation of current film transport methods is undertaken leading to the design and testing of a prototype capstan drive mechanism. The capstan drive system is shown to eliminate problems of sprocket drives and their associated mechanisms. A multi-input multi-output controller is presented using state-space methods of design. The developed control strategies are fully tested on a model of the plant before hardware testing. The control outputs of the system are speed and tension. The final control solution is shown to be a combination of full-state feedback, integral control, and a Kalman filter estimator for the elimination of system disturbances. The transputer implementation of the developed control strategies is presented together with a comparison between simulation and experimental results. It is shown that computational times can be reduced by using multiple transputers and placing computation-intensive sections of the control algorithm on separate processors. Transputer configurations and interconnections are shown. The capstan system has been shown to allow faster printing speeds with improved transport accuracy leading to better quality of the final picture print. The system has been shown to be 'robust' to external disturbances and changes in plant parameters