Application of Reconfigurable Computing to Acoustic Sensors

A hybrid-computing architecture consisting of a general purpose digital signal processor (DSP) closely coupled to a field-programmable gate array serving as a reconfigurable processor has been demonstrated as having great utility to collect, process, and report data from a sensor node containing acoustic and possibly other sensors. The computing architecture for microsensors (CAμS) was developed jointly by ARL and Sanders under the auspices of the Advanced Sensors FedLab Program. CAμS was used to replace an existing PCI-based computer chassis in a data collection system resulting in a ten thousand-fold improvement in size × weight × power product. The processing load is split between the general purpose DSP and the reconfigurable processor to achieve these improved results. Although in this incarnation, reconfiguration on the fly was not implemented, this paper will discuss situations where this would be advantageous. The direction of reconfigurable computing for the near future will be outlined, especially with processing acoustic signals in an array of distributed sensors. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited