Experiment platform to facilitate flight testing of fault tolerant reconfigurable computer systems

Abstract

Computers play an important role in spaceflight and with ever more complex mission goals and sensors, current devices are not sufficient to meet the computational requirements of future missions. These challenges are complicated by memory corruption caused by high energy radiation inherent in the space environment. MSU has developed a novel space computing system based on commercial FPGAs to improve performance and reduce cost. This system employs TMR with spares, memory scrubbing, and partial reconfiguration to achieve a radiation hardened, high performance system. This strategy is leveraged on modern fabrication process nodes largely eliminating long term effects of radiation on silicon devices and shifting the focus strictly on memory corruption errors. This thesis improves on the usability of Montana State University's (MSU) existing CubeSat computing research platform through the addition of a robust data-logging system.