| KEYWORD |
FPGA-based accelerators for future Mars exploration missions
keywords DEPENDABLE SYSTEM DESIGN, DIGITAL SYSTEM DESIGN, DIGITAL SYSTEM DESIGN TEST AND VERIFICATION, EMBEDDED SYSTEMS, FPGA, ON-BOARD PROCESSORS, PAYLOAD CONTROL, SPACE EXPLORATION
Reference persons STEFANO DI CARLO, PAOLO ERNESTO PRINETTO
External reference persons GAMBARDELLA Giulio (PhD Student), ROLFO Daniele (PhD Student), PASCAL TROTTA (Research Assistant)
Research Groups TESTGROUP - TESTGROUP
Thesis type EXPERIMENTAL
Description Motivation:
Video-based navigation is increasingly used in space-applications (e.g., rover navigation). Future space-missions will include this approach during the EDL (Entry, Descending and Landing) phase, to increase the precision of EDL systems. High dependability and high computational capabilities are required.
Advanced FPGA-based processors appear to be good candidate for accelerating these applications.
Goals:
The thesis aims at the development of an FPGA-based accelerator for enhancing the performances of the Video-based Navigation System in critical space missions (namely: Mars and Moon missions).
The system has to extract different information from input images and find the best Descending trajectory. All the computations have hard-real time constraints.
Learning Outcomes:
During this thesis the candidate will learn how to design high-performance FPGA-based accelerators, manage different kind of data, and guarantee the required level of dependability.
Required skills Programming Languages: C, VHDL, Matlab
Digital System design methodologies
Notes The thesis will be developed in cooperation with: ThalesAlenia Space S.p.A.
In addition, ThalesAlenia Space s.p.a. may offer different internship positions at the end of the thesis.
Number of required Students: 4
Deadline 01/03/2014
PROPONI LA TUA CANDIDATURA