Achieving low-cost high-reliability computation through redundant parallel processing

This paper presents a reconfigurable parallel architecture comprising an FPGA backbone and multiple processing nodes connected in a redundant array architecture and constructed mainly from low-cost commercial components. The reconfigurability of the backbone aids in allowing the system to operate as a fault-tolerant cluster utilising the principle of reliability through redundancy. Although initially designed for space-borne on-board processing of satellite imagery, the system combines the advantages of powerful computational resources with simplified software development. This makes the computer a useful general-purpose embedded processing block for critical computational tasks where fault-tolerance and high processing capabilities are required.