Compute Element and Interface Box for the Hazard Detection System

• Published in: NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI). Tech Briefs
• Main Authors: Villalpando, Carlos Y, Khanoyan, Garen, Spaulding, Matthew D, Luna, Michael E, Motaghedi, Shui H, Trawny, Nikolas, Johnson, Andrew E, Ivanov, Tonislav I, Huertas, Andres, Whitaker, William D, Goldberg, Steven B, Stern, Ryan A, Some, Raphael R, Bailey, Erik S, Carson, John M, Vaughan, Geoffrey M, Werner, Robert A, Salomon, Phil M, Martin, Keith E
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hampton NASA/Langley Research Center 01.04.2013
• Subjects: Control equipment; Data management; Field programmable gate arrays; Landing sites; Microprocessors; Sensor arrays

The Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) program is building a sensor that enables a spacecraft to evaluate autonomously a potential landing area to generate a list of hazardous and safe landing sites. It will also provide navigation inputs relative to those safe sites. The Hazard Detection System Compute Element (HDS-CE) box combines a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) board for sensor integration and timing, with a multicore computer board for processing. The FPGA does system-level timing and data aggregation, and acts as a go-between, removing the real-time requirements from the processor and labeling events with a high resolution time. The processor manages the behavior of the system, controls the instruments connected to the HDS-CE, and services the "heavy lifting" computational requirements for analyzing the potential landing spots.