| NASA Uses Common CPUs for Radiation-Resistant Computers |
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| Dec 31 2005 | |
 EAFTC computers in a space-ready flight chassis. (NASA/Honeywell)
advertisement: A NASA project called Environmentally Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Computing (EAFTC) is experimenting with ways to use consumer CPUs in space. They’re interested in single-event upsets, which are glitches caused by radiation bombarding the chips.
One of the ways to utilize consumer CPUs in space is to have three times as many as you need, according to project member Raphael Some. The three CPUs perform a calculation and vote on the result. If one makes a radiation-induced error, the other two still agree, winning the vote and giving the correct answer. EAFTC computers cannot replace rad-hard CPUs for tasks such as life support. But the system algorithms may take some of the data-processing load off of the chips, enabling greater computing power. EAFTC’s first test is scheduled on a 2009 launch of the Space Technology 8 satellite, which will flight-test new technologies such as EAFTC. Visit http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/18nov_eaftc.htm for more information. |
