Active nodal task seeking (ANTS): an approach to high-performance, ultradependable computing

The active nodal task seeking (ANTS) approach to the design of multicomputer systems is named for its basic component: an active nodal task-seeker (ANT). In this system, there is no load balancing or load sharing, instead, each ANT computing node is actively finding out how it can contribute to the execution of the needed tasks. A run-time partition is established such that some of the ANT computing nodes are under exhaustive diagnosis at any given time. An ANTS multicomputer system can achieve a mean time to failure of more than 20 years with just 8 computing nodes and 3 buses, while the minimum requirements are 3 computing nodes and 1 bus, and with a worst case computing node failure rate of 5×10^-4/h. This work has been motivated by the need to develop high-performance multicomputer systems for radar, active and passive sonar, and electronic warfare that can provide ultradependable performance for more than 20 years without field repairs. We argue that high performance is also an attribute of an ANTS computing system, because the overhead of dynamic task scheduling is reduced and because efficient use is made of the available processing resources