Overview

Power Aware Computing/Communications (PAC/C) is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored program through the DARPA Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO). This program promotes research and development of power aware devices with the objective of improving power management and consumption in these technologies; by creating devices which are aware of their own power usage, it is possible to design systems that will make better, or smarter, use of the available power. Application areas for this research includes Land Warrior, UAV/Smart Platform, Distributed Communications & Sensor, and Space systems. See the PAC/C homepage for more information pertaining to this program.

The Non-Proliferation & International Security (NIS) Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is participating in the Space systems application area of this program to increase the onboard processing capability of remote-sensing satellites. The LANL team has chosen a space mission that is similar in nature to the mission of the Fast On-Orbit Recording of Transient Events (FORTÉ) satellite. This specific mission is being used to demonstrate power aware management techniques that enable onboard signal processing of remotely sensed data. Signal processing routines are to be run on the Power Aware Multiprocessor Architecture (PAMA) hardware board provided by the University of California / Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI). The key concept in this project is the management of power consumption through algorithm modulation: each algorithm uses a certain amount of power and time to execute while also providing a level of accuracy in the processed data. The design tradeoff for this concept is energy (power x time) versus processed data accuracy, and the desired performance is to maintain the highest level of accuracy possible given the instantaneous and predicted amount of power available.