on 24-05-2011
This workshop intends to review current R&D trends in radio-astronomical data analysis and their convergence with the FP7/FP8 ICT roadmaps. The topics will cover astronomy and space science applications and deal with the technologies being investigated in projects ranging from electronic Very Long Baseline Interferometry (e-VLBI) to the SKA (Square Kilometre Array). Future paradigms for information processing up to the Exabyte and Exaflop regime will be discussed in collaboration with major industrial partners.
The distributed sensor networks currently used in radio astronomy are generating ever larger amounts of digital data, posing increasing demands on processing, transport and storage facilities. Networked instruments such as the e-EVN already send much of their data in real-time via optical fibres, through national and international research networks. Networked infrastructure was critical for the establishment and success of recent telescopes such as ALMA, e-Merlin, LOFAR, e-VLA and e-EVN. The ongoing transition from 10 Gbps to 100+Gbps networking infrastructure will lay the foundation for the next generation instruments and drive much of the cost of infrastructure of these large-scale projects.
How to utilise the emerging ICT infrastructure will be of crucial importance for many SKA Pathfinders. The EC-funded NEXPReS programme (Novel EXplorations Pushing Robust e-VLBI Services) is investigating new signal transport and processing technologies. SKA Design Studies like the PrepSKA and the Aperture Array Verification Program (AAVP) will have a direct influence on the utilisation of network connectivity. The SKA, precursors like ASKAP, Meerkat, MWA and pathfinders like APERTIF and in general any Aperture Array components, will certainly pose additional challenges on connectivity, processing and storage, representing an increase of several orders of magnitude compared to current information processing scenarios and may lead to the usage and test of new technologies for Future Internet. This growing connectivity will condition the final computing stages and science exploitation. These aspects will depend on new protocols for data formatting and successors to the widespread IP technology may be needed to take full advantage of the expected performance increase on the physical transport side.
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on 23-05-2011
SEMINAR 23rd May 2011
Instituto de Telecomunicações - Aveiro
Amphitheather, 16h00
Title: Taking Saratoga from Space-Based Ground Sensors to Ground-Based Space Sensors
by Dr.Charles Smith, CSIRO, Australia
Abstract:
The Saratoga transfer protocol was developed by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) for its Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) satellites. In over seven years of operation, Saratoga has provided efficient delivery of remote-sensing Earth observation imagery, across private wireless links, from these seven low-orbit satellites to ground stations, using the Internet Protocol (IP). Saratoga is designed to cope with high bandwidth-delay products, constrained acknowledgment channels, and high loss while streaming or delivering extremely large files. An implementation of this protocol has now been developed at the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) for wider use and testing. This is intended to prototype delivery of data across dedicated astronomy radio telescope networks on the ground, where networked sensors in Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) instruments generate large amounts of data for processing and can send that data across private IP- and Ethernet-based links at very high rates. We describe this new Saratoga implementation, its features and focus on high throughput and link utilization, and lessons learned in developing this protocol for sensor-network applications.
Publication: IEEE Aerospace Conference 2011
The seminar is intended to informally present to those interested on the convergence of Future Internet, Space Science applications of Remote Sensing and application to ground-based space sensor arrays. Students are most encouraged and welcomed .
Biography: Charles Smith is a networking consulting engineer who is currently attached to the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science Division. He is advising the Australian Telescope National Facility and the Square Kilometre Array Project Development Offices on networking technologies, and researching architectures for the data and control planes for the ASKAP and SKA radio telescopes. Previously, Charles spent eight years at Cisco Systems, where he was a principal architect and engineered research and education networks, including the National Lambda Rail in the United States and TWAREN backbones in Taiwan.
Conveners: Domingos Barbosa, João Paulo Barraca
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