Engineers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., needed a powerful-yet-cost-effective multicomputer system to run advanced algorithms in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. So they chose a RACE multicomputer system from Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. in Chelmsford, Mass.
"Advancing the state of the art in real-time synthetic aperture radar requires the development of many new techniques, which in turn increase the need for bandwidth, memory, and processing power," says Bruce Walker, SAR development manager at Sandia National Laboratories. "The Mercury RACE system allows us to make these advances economically and with a packaging density consistent with the surveillance mission."
The high-bandwidth RACE system delivered to Sandia includes 20 processors and 576 Mbytes of memory. Its RACEway processing subsystem provides 4 gigaflops of processing power in a space smaller than one-fifth of a cubic foot.
Sandia`s image formation and motion-compensation algorithms provide SAR images for growing applications; agencies such as the U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy will use these algorithms in missions such as military reconnaissance, surveillance, and to verify compliance with weapons non-proliferation treaties. - J.M.
For more information on the RACE system, contact Mercury`s John Robinson by phone at 508-256-1300, by fax at 508-256-3599, by mail at Mercury Computer Systems Inc., 199 Riverneck Road, Chelmsford, Mass., 01824-2820, by e-mail at [email protected], or on the World Wide Web at http://www.mc.com.
