Smoothing filters have been extensively used for noise removal and image restoration. Directional filters are widely used in computer vision and image processing tasks such as motion analysis, edge detection, line parameter estimation and texture analysis. It is practically impossible to tune the filters to all possible positions and orientations in real time due to huge computation requirement. The efficient way is to design a few basis filters, and express the output of a directional filter as a weighted sum of the basis filter outputs. Directional filters having these properties are called "Steerable Filters." This thesis work emphasis is on the implementation of proposed computationally efficient separable and steerable Gaussian smoothers on a Xilinx VirtexII Pro FPGA platform. FPGAs are Field Programmable Gate Arrays which consist of a collection of logic blocks including lookup tables, flip flops and some amount of Random Access Memory. All blocks are wired together using an array of interconnects. The proposed technique [2] is implemented on a FPGA hardware taking the advantage of parallelism and pipelining.

Multi-/many-core heterogeneous architectures are shaping current and upcoming generations of compute-centric platforms which are widely used starting from mobile and wearable devices to high-performance cloud computing servers. Heterogeneous many-core architectures sought to achieve an order of magnitude higher energy efficiency as well as computing performance scaling by replacing homogeneous and power-hungry general-purpose processors with multiple heterogeneous compute units supporting multiple core types and domain-specific accelerators. Drifting from homogeneous architectures to complex heterogeneous systems is heavily adopted by chip designers and the silicon industry for more than a decade. Recent silicon chips are based on a heterogeneous SoC which combines a scalable number of heterogeneous processing units from different types (e.g. CPU, GPU, custom accelerator). This shifting in computing paradigm is associated with several system-level design challenges related to the integration and communication between a highly scalable number of heterogeneous compute units as well as SoC peripherals and storage units. Moreover, the increasing design complexities make the production of heterogeneous SoC chips a monopoly for only big market players due to the increasing development and design costs. Accordingly, recent initiatives towards agile hardware development open-source tools and microarchitecture aim to democratize silicon chip production for academic and commercial usage. Agile hardware development aims to reduce development costs by providing an ecosystem for open-source hardware microarchitectures and hardware design processes. Therefore, heterogeneous many-core development and customization will be relatively less complex and less time-consuming than conventional design process methods. In order to provide a modular and agile many-core development approach, this dissertation proposes a development platform for heterogeneous and self-adaptive many-core architectures consisting of a scalable number of heterogeneous tiles that maintain design regularity features while supporting heterogeneity. The proposed platform hides the integration complexities by supporting modular tile architectures for general-purpose processing cores supporting multi-instruction set architectures (multi-ISAs) and custom hardware accelerators. By leveraging field-programmable-gate-arrays (FPGAs), the self-adaptive feature of the many-core platform can be achieved by using dynamic and partial reconfiguration (DPR) techniques. This dissertation realizes the proposed modular and adaptive heterogeneous many-core platform through three main contributions. The first contribution proposes and realizes a many-core architecture for heterogeneous ISAs. It provides a modular and reusable tilebased architecture for several heterogeneous ISAs based on open-source RISC-V ISA. The modular tile-based architecture features a configurable number of processing cores with different RISC-V ISAs and different memory hierarchies. To increase the level of heterogeneity to support the integration of custom hardware accelerators, a novel hybrid memory/accelerator tile architecture is developed and realized as the second contribution. The hybrid tile is a modular and reusable tile that can be configured at run-time to operate as a scratchpad shared memory between compute tiles or as an accelerator tile hosting a local hardware accelerator logic. The hybrid tile is designed and implemented to be seamlessly integrated into the proposed tile-based platform. The third contribution deals with the self-adaptation features by providing a reconfiguration management approach to internally control the DPR process through processing cores (RISC-V based). The internal reconfiguration process relies on a novel DPR controller targeting FPGA design flow for RISC-V-based SoC to change the types and functionalities of compute tiles at run-time.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / GSFC in keeping with the tenets of NASA has been aggressively investigating new technologies for spacecraft and ground communications and processing. The application of these technologies, together with standardized telemetry formats, make it possible to build systems that provide high-performance at low cost in a short development cycle. The High Rate Telemetry Acquisition System (HRTAS) Prototype is one such effort that has validated Goddard's push towards faster, better and cheaper. The HRTAS system architecture is based on the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus and VLSI Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). These ASICs perform frame synchronization, bit-transition density decoding, cyclic redundancy code (CRC) error checking, Reed-Solomon error detection/correction, data unit sorting, packet extraction, annotation and other service processing. This processing in performed at rates of up to and greater than 150 Mbps sustained using a high-end performance workstation running standard UNIX O/S, (DEC 4100 with DEC UNIX or better). ASICs are also used for the digital reception of Intermediate Frequency (IF) telemetry as well as the spacecraft command interface for commands and data simulations. To improve the efficiency of the back-end processing, the level zero processing sorting element is being developed. This will provide a complete hardware solution to extracting and sorting source data units and making these available in separate files on a remote disk system. Research is on going to extend this development to higher levels of the science data processing pipeline. The fact that level 1 and higher processing is instrument dependent; an acceleration approach utilizing ASICs is not feasible. The advent of field programmable gate array (FPGA) based computing, referred to as adaptive or reconfigurable computing, provides a processing performance close to ASIC levels while maintaining much of the programmability of traditional microprocessor based systems. This adaptive computing paradigm has been successfully demonstrated and its cost performance validated, to make it a viable technology for the level one and higher processing element for the HRTAS. Higher levels of processing are defined as the extraction of useful information from source telemetry data. This information has to be made available to the science data user in a very short period of time. This paper will describe this low cost solution for high rate data processing at level one and higher processing levels. The paper will further discuss the cost-benefit of this technology in terms of cost, schedule, reliability and performance.

First part of this thesis presents the design, validation, and implementation of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transmitter and receiver on a Cyclone II FPGA chip using DSP builder and Quartus II high level design tools. The resources in terms of logical elements (LE) including combinational functions and logic registers allocated by the model have been investigated and addressed. The result shows that implementing the basic OFDM transceiver allocates about 14% (equivalent to 6% at transmitter and 8% at receiver) of the available LE resources on an Altera Cyclone II EP2C35F672C6 FPGA chip, largely taken up by the FFT, IFFT and soft decision encoder. Secondly, a new wavelet-based OFDM system based on FDPP-DA based channel estimation is proposed as a reliable ECG Patient Monitoring System, a Personal Wireless telemedicine application. The system performance for different wavelet mothers has been investigated. The effects of AWGN and multipath Rayleigh fading channels have also been studied in the analysis. The performances of FDPP-DA and HDPP-DA-based channel estimations are compared based on both DFT-based OFDM and wavelet-based OFDM systems. The system model was studied using MATLAB software in which the average BER was addressed for randomized data. The main error differences that reflect the quality of the received ECG signals between the reconstructed and original ECG signals are established. Finally a DA-based architecture for 1-D iDWT/DWT based on an OFDM model is implemented for an ECG-PMS wireless telemedicine application. In the portable wireless body transmitter unit at the patient site, a fully Serial-DA-based scheme for iDWT is realized to support higher hardware utilization and lower power consumption; whereas a fully Parallel-DA-based scheme for DWT is applied at the base unit of the hospital site to support a higher throughput. It should be noted that the behavioural level of HDL models of the proposed system was developed and implemented to confirm its correctness in simulation. Then, after the simulation process the design models were synthesised and implemented for the target FPGA to confirm their validation.

First part of this thesis presents the design, validation, and implementation of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transmitter and receiver on a Cyclone II FPGA chip using DSP builder and Quartus II high level design tools. The resources in terms of logical elements (LE) including combinational functions and logic registers allocated by the model have been investigated and addressed. The result shows that implementing the basic OFDM transceiver allocates about 14% (equivalent to 6% at transmitter and 8% at receiver) of the available LE resources on an Altera Cyclone II EP2C35F672C6 FPGA chip, largely taken up by the FFT, IFFT and soft decision encoder. Secondly, a new wavelet-based OFDM system based on FDPP-DA based channel estimation is proposed as a reliable ECG Patient Monitoring System, a Personal Wireless telemedicine application. The system performance for different wavelet mothers has been investigated. The effects of AWGN and multipath Rayleigh fading channels have also been studied in the analysis. The performances of FDPP-DA and HDPP-DA-based channel estimations are compared based on both DFT-based OFDM and wavelet-based OFDM systems. The system model was studied using MATLAB software in which the average BER was addressed for randomized data. The main error differences that reflect the quality of the received ECG signals between the reconstructed and original ECG signals are established. Finally a DA-based architecture for 1-D iDWT/DWT based on an OFDM model is implemented for an ECG-PMS wireless telemedicine application. In the portable wireless body transmitter unit at the patient site, a fully Serial-DA-based scheme for iDWT is realized to support higher hardware utilization and lower power consumption; whereas a fully Parallel-DA-based scheme for DWT is applied at the base unit of the hospital site to support a higher throughput. It should be noted that the behavioural level of HDL models of the proposed system was developed and implemented to confirm its correctness in simulation. Then, after the simulation process the design models were synthesised and implemented for the target FPGA to confirm their validation.

Este trabalho consiste em um estudo acerca dos efeitos da radiação em circuitos programáveis e sistemas em chip, do inglês System-on-Chip (SoC), baseados em FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Array). Dentre os diversos efeitos que podem ensejar falhas nos circuitos integrados, destacam-se a ocorrência de Single Event Effects (SEEs), Efeitos Transitórios em tradução livre, e a Dose Total Ionizante, do inglês Total Ionizing Dose (TID). SEEs podem ocorrer em razão da incidência de nêutrons originários de interações de raios cósmicos com a atmosfera terrestre, íons pesados provenientes do espaço e prótons originários do Sol (vento solar) e dos cinturões de Van Allen. A Dose Total Ionizante diz respeito à exposição prolongada de um circuito integrado à radiação ionizante e cuja consequência é a alteração das características elétricas de partes do dispositivo em razão das cargas elétricas induzidas pela radiação e acumuladas nas interfaces dos semicondutores. Dentro desse contexto, este trabalho descreve em detalhes a caracterização do SoC-FPGA baseado em memória FLASH e de sinais mistos SmartFusion A2F200-FG484, da empresa Microsemi, quando exposto à radiação (SEEs e TID) através do uso da técnica de Redundância Diversificada visando a detecção de erros. Também, uma arquitetura que utiliza um esquema baseado em Redundância Modular Tripla e Diversificada é testada através da sua implementação no FPGA baseado em memória SRAM da família Spartan-6, modelo LX45, da empresa Xilinx, visando a detecção e correção de erros causados pela radiação (SEEs). Os resultados obtidos mostram que os diversos blocos funcionais que compõe SoC SmartFusion apresentam diferentes níveis de tolerância à radiação e que o uso das técnicas de Redundância Modular Tripla e Redundância Diversificada em conjunto mostrou-se extremamente eficiente no que se refere a tolerância a SEEs. / This work consists in a study about the radiation effects in programmable circuits and System-on-Chips (SoCs) based on FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays). Single Event Effects (SEEs) and Total Ionizing Dose (TID) are the two main effects caused by the radiation incidence, and both can imply in the occurrence of failures in integrated circuits. SEEs are due to the incidence of neutrons derived from the interaction of the cosmic rays with the terrestrial atmosphere, as well as heavy ions coming from the space and protons provided from the solar wind and the Van Allen belts. Total Ionizing Dose regards the prolonged exposure of an integrated circuit to the ionizing radiation, which deviates the standard electrical characteristics of the device due to radiation-induced electrical charges accumulated in the semiconductors’ interfaces. In this context, this work aims to describe in details the characterization of Microsemi’s mixed-signal SoC-FPGA SmartFusion A2F200-FG484 when exposed to radiation (SEEs and TID), using a Diverse Redundancy approach for error detection. As well, an architecture using a Diversified Triple Modular Redundancy scheme was tested (SEEs) through its implementation in a Xilinx’s Spartan-6 LX45 FPGA, aiming error detection and correction. The results obtained show that several functional blocks from SmartFusion have different radiation tolerance levels and that the use of the Triple Modular Redundancy together with Diversified Redundancy proved to be extremely efficient in terms of SEEs tolerance.

Este trabalho consiste em um estudo acerca dos efeitos da radiação em circuitos programáveis e sistemas em chip, do inglês System-on-Chip (SoC), baseados em FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Array). Dentre os diversos efeitos que podem ensejar falhas nos circuitos integrados, destacam-se a ocorrência de Single Event Effects (SEEs), Efeitos Transitórios em tradução livre, e a Dose Total Ionizante, do inglês Total Ionizing Dose (TID). SEEs podem ocorrer em razão da incidência de nêutrons originários de interações de raios cósmicos com a atmosfera terrestre, íons pesados provenientes do espaço e prótons originários do Sol (vento solar) e dos cinturões de Van Allen. A Dose Total Ionizante diz respeito à exposição prolongada de um circuito integrado à radiação ionizante e cuja consequência é a alteração das características elétricas de partes do dispositivo em razão das cargas elétricas induzidas pela radiação e acumuladas nas interfaces dos semicondutores. Dentro desse contexto, este trabalho descreve em detalhes a caracterização do SoC-FPGA baseado em memória FLASH e de sinais mistos SmartFusion A2F200-FG484, da empresa Microsemi, quando exposto à radiação (SEEs e TID) através do uso da técnica de Redundância Diversificada visando a detecção de erros. Também, uma arquitetura que utiliza um esquema baseado em Redundância Modular Tripla e Diversificada é testada através da sua implementação no FPGA baseado em memória SRAM da família Spartan-6, modelo LX45, da empresa Xilinx, visando a detecção e correção de erros causados pela radiação (SEEs). Os resultados obtidos mostram que os diversos blocos funcionais que compõe SoC SmartFusion apresentam diferentes níveis de tolerância à radiação e que o uso das técnicas de Redundância Modular Tripla e Redundância Diversificada em conjunto mostrou-se extremamente eficiente no que se refere a tolerância a SEEs. / This work consists in a study about the radiation effects in programmable circuits and System-on-Chips (SoCs) based on FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays). Single Event Effects (SEEs) and Total Ionizing Dose (TID) are the two main effects caused by the radiation incidence, and both can imply in the occurrence of failures in integrated circuits. SEEs are due to the incidence of neutrons derived from the interaction of the cosmic rays with the terrestrial atmosphere, as well as heavy ions coming from the space and protons provided from the solar wind and the Van Allen belts. Total Ionizing Dose regards the prolonged exposure of an integrated circuit to the ionizing radiation, which deviates the standard electrical characteristics of the device due to radiation-induced electrical charges accumulated in the semiconductors’ interfaces. In this context, this work aims to describe in details the characterization of Microsemi’s mixed-signal SoC-FPGA SmartFusion A2F200-FG484 when exposed to radiation (SEEs and TID), using a Diverse Redundancy approach for error detection. As well, an architecture using a Diversified Triple Modular Redundancy scheme was tested (SEEs) through its implementation in a Xilinx’s Spartan-6 LX45 FPGA, aiming error detection and correction. The results obtained show that several functional blocks from SmartFusion have different radiation tolerance levels and that the use of the Triple Modular Redundancy together with Diversified Redundancy proved to be extremely efficient in terms of SEEs tolerance.

Este trabalho consiste em um estudo acerca dos efeitos da radiação em circuitos programáveis e sistemas em chip, do inglês System-on-Chip (SoC), baseados em FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Array). Dentre os diversos efeitos que podem ensejar falhas nos circuitos integrados, destacam-se a ocorrência de Single Event Effects (SEEs), Efeitos Transitórios em tradução livre, e a Dose Total Ionizante, do inglês Total Ionizing Dose (TID). SEEs podem ocorrer em razão da incidência de nêutrons originários de interações de raios cósmicos com a atmosfera terrestre, íons pesados provenientes do espaço e prótons originários do Sol (vento solar) e dos cinturões de Van Allen. A Dose Total Ionizante diz respeito à exposição prolongada de um circuito integrado à radiação ionizante e cuja consequência é a alteração das características elétricas de partes do dispositivo em razão das cargas elétricas induzidas pela radiação e acumuladas nas interfaces dos semicondutores. Dentro desse contexto, este trabalho descreve em detalhes a caracterização do SoC-FPGA baseado em memória FLASH e de sinais mistos SmartFusion A2F200-FG484, da empresa Microsemi, quando exposto à radiação (SEEs e TID) através do uso da técnica de Redundância Diversificada visando a detecção de erros. Também, uma arquitetura que utiliza um esquema baseado em Redundância Modular Tripla e Diversificada é testada através da sua implementação no FPGA baseado em memória SRAM da família Spartan-6, modelo LX45, da empresa Xilinx, visando a detecção e correção de erros causados pela radiação (SEEs). Os resultados obtidos mostram que os diversos blocos funcionais que compõe SoC SmartFusion apresentam diferentes níveis de tolerância à radiação e que o uso das técnicas de Redundância Modular Tripla e Redundância Diversificada em conjunto mostrou-se extremamente eficiente no que se refere a tolerância a SEEs. / This work consists in a study about the radiation effects in programmable circuits and System-on-Chips (SoCs) based on FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays). Single Event Effects (SEEs) and Total Ionizing Dose (TID) are the two main effects caused by the radiation incidence, and both can imply in the occurrence of failures in integrated circuits. SEEs are due to the incidence of neutrons derived from the interaction of the cosmic rays with the terrestrial atmosphere, as well as heavy ions coming from the space and protons provided from the solar wind and the Van Allen belts. Total Ionizing Dose regards the prolonged exposure of an integrated circuit to the ionizing radiation, which deviates the standard electrical characteristics of the device due to radiation-induced electrical charges accumulated in the semiconductors’ interfaces. In this context, this work aims to describe in details the characterization of Microsemi’s mixed-signal SoC-FPGA SmartFusion A2F200-FG484 when exposed to radiation (SEEs and TID), using a Diverse Redundancy approach for error detection. As well, an architecture using a Diversified Triple Modular Redundancy scheme was tested (SEEs) through its implementation in a Xilinx’s Spartan-6 LX45 FPGA, aiming error detection and correction. The results obtained show that several functional blocks from SmartFusion have different radiation tolerance levels and that the use of the Triple Modular Redundancy together with Diversified Redundancy proved to be extremely efficient in terms of SEEs tolerance.

Space debris and space situational awareness (SSA) have become growing concerns for national security and the sustainability of space operations, where timely detection and tracking of space objects is critical in preventing collision events. Traditional computer-vision algorithms have been used extensively to solve detection and tracking problems in flight, but recently deep learning approaches have seen widespread adoption in non-space related applications for their high accuracy. The performanceper-watt and flexibility of reconfigurable Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) make them a good candidate for deep learning model deployment in space, supporting in-flight updates and maintenance. However, the FPGA design costs of custom accelerators for complex algorithms remains high. The research focus of the thesis relies on novel high-level synthesis (HLS) workflows that allow the developer to raise the level of abstraction and lower design costs for deep learning accelerators, particularly for space-representative applications. To this end, four different hardware accelerators of convolutional neural network models for spacebased debris detection are implemented (ResNet, SqueezeNet, DenseNet, TinyCNN), using the open-source HLS tool NNgen. The obtained hardware accelerators are deployed to a reconfigurable module of the Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC programmable logic, and compared in terms of inference performance, resource utilization and latency. The tests on the target hardware show a detection accuracy over 95% for ResNet, DenseNet and SqueezeNet, and a localization intersection-over-union over 0.5 for the deep models, and over 0.7 for TinyCNN, for space debris objects at a range between 1km and 100km for a diameter of 1cm, or between 100km and 1000km for a diameter of 10cm. The obtained speed-ups with respect to software-only implementations lay between 3x and 32x for the different hardware accelerators. / Rymdskrot och rymdsituationstänksamhet (SSA) har blivit växande oro för nationell säkerhet och hållbarheten för rymdoperationer, där snabb upptäckt och spårning av rymdobjekt är avgörande för att förhindra kollisioner. Traditionella datorseendealgoritmer har använts omfattande för att lösa problem med upptäckt och spårning i flygning, men på senare tid har djupinlärningsmetoder fått stor användning inom icke rymdrelaterade applikationer på grund av sin höga noggrannhet. Prestandaper-watt och flexibiliteten hos omkonfigurerbara Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) gör dem till en bra kandidat för distribution av djupinlärningsmodeller i rymden, med stöd för uppdateringar och underhåll under flygning. Men FPGAdesignkostnaderna för anpassade acceleratorer för komplexa algoritmer är fortfarande höga. Forskningsfokus för avhandlingen ligger på nya högnivåsyntes (HLS) arbetsflöden som gör det möjligt för utvecklaren att höja abstraktionsnivån och sänka designkostnaderna för acceleratorer för djupinlärning, särskilt för tillämpningar i rymden. För detta har fyra olika hårdvaruacceleratorer för modeller av konvolutionsnätverk för upptäckt av rymdbaserat skrot implementerats (ResNet, SqueezeNet, DenseNet, TinyCNN), med hjälp av öppen källkod HLS-verktyget NNgen. De erhållna hårdvaruacceleratorerna distribueras till en omkonfigurerbar modul av Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC-programmerbar logik och jämförs med avseende på inferensprestanda, resursutnyttjande och latens. Testerna på målhardwaren visar en upptäktnoggrannhet på över 95% för ResNet, DenseNet och SqueezeNet, och en lokaliserings-intersektion-över-union på över 0,5 för de djupa modellerna och över 0,7 för TinyCNN för rymdskrotobjekt på en avstånd mellan 1 km och 100 km för en diameter på 1 cm eller mellan 100 km och 1000 km för en diameter på 10 cm. De erhållna hastighetsökningarna i förhållande till endast programvara ligger mellan 3x och 32x för de olika hårdvaruacceleratorerna.

Actualmente, las tecnologías CMOS submicrónicas son básicas para el desarrollo de los modernos sistemas basados en computadores, cuyo uso simplifica enormemente nuestra vida diaria en una gran variedad de entornos, como el gobierno, comercio y banca electrónicos, y el transporte terrestre y aeroespacial. La continua reducción del tamaño de los transistores ha permitido reducir su consumo y aumentar su frecuencia de funcionamiento, obteniendo por ello un mayor rendimiento global. Sin embargo, estas mismas características que mejoran el rendimiento del sistema, afectan negativamente a su confiabilidad. El uso de transistores de tamaño reducido, bajo consumo y alta velocidad, está incrementando la diversidad de fallos que pueden afectar al sistema y su probabilidad de aparición. Por lo tanto, existe un gran interés en desarrollar nuevas y eficientes técnicas para evaluar la confiabilidad, en presencia de fallos, de sistemas fabricados mediante tecnologías submicrónicas. Este problema puede abordarse por medio de la introducción deliberada de fallos en el sistema, técnica conocida como inyección de fallos. En este contexto, la inyección basada en modelos resulta muy interesante, ya que permite evaluar la confiabilidad del sistema en las primeras etapas de su ciclo de desarrollo, reduciendo por tanto el coste asociado a la corrección de errores. Sin embargo, el tiempo de simulación de modelos grandes y complejos imposibilita su aplicación en un gran número de ocasiones. Esta tesis se centra en el uso de dispositivos lógicos programables de tipo FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays) para acelerar los experimentos de inyección de fallos basados en simulación por medio de su implementación en hardware reconfigurable. Para ello, se extiende la investigación existente en inyección de fallos basada en FPGA en dos direcciones distintas: i) se realiza un estudio de las tecnologías submicrónicas existentes para obtener un conjunto representativo de modelos de fallos transitorios / Andrés Martínez, DD. (2007). Speeding-up model-based fault injection of deep-submicron CMOS fault models through dynamic and partially reconfigurable FPGAS [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/1943