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Brad Shea, a graduate student, conducts diagnostic testing on prototype hardware that will eventually be sent to the International Space Station. The work is being done at the University of Pittsburgh Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing laboratory in Oakland.
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Pitt researchers control supercomputers in space. They could be the future of our own computers on Earth.

Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette

Pitt researchers control supercomputers in space. They could be the future of our own computers on Earth.

Just a few floors up inside the Schenley Place building on the University of Pittsburgh’s campus in Oakland, a small computer server room — chilled by fans — houses confidential data sent from computers attached to NASA’s International Space Station.

Only about 20 outsiders have ever entered the room, based on an estimate offered by graduate student Chris Wilson. That’s because the special facility houses U.S. export-controlled technology.

Upon entering, you must prove you are a citizen.

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Mr. Wilson isn’t completely starstruck with the room. It’s too cold. Yet he conducts his work there because the servers aren’t legally allowed to leave the space. 

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“I feel really at home in these rooms, but the students hate them,” joked Alan D. George, founder and director of the National Science Foundation’s Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing, which relocated to Pitt early this year.

For brevity’s sake, Mr. George calls the space computer engineering center CHREC, which is pronounced “shrek,” like the famous green ogre voiced by actor Mike Myers.

CHREC’s primary mission at Pitt is not only to conduct engineering research on space computing — looking to overcome galactic hazards, like radiation — but to advance high-performance supercomputing, in general.

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That could trickle down into better consumer technology vis-a-vis partnerships with various industry leaders who may monetize that research.


Brad Shea, a graduate student, conducts diagnostic testing on prototype hardware that will eventually be sent to the International Space Station (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)

From Florida to Pittsburgh

A Floridian expat, Mr. George, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Florida State University, founded the CHREC center at the University of Florida in 2007 under the auspices of the National Science Foundation. It expanded to include partner sites at Virginia Tech and Provo, Utah-based Brigham Young University.

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Since then, the National Science Foundation has considered CHREC to be one of its top research and development facilities and the foundation has worked with a consortium of more than 30 industry, government and academic partners to bolster its public-private funding.

Mr. George and his team of 14 graduate students moved the headquarters to Pitt in January, maintaining the original three sites.

While it seems ironic that a NASA-affiliated space research center would relocate from Florida, home of the Kennedy Space Center, to Pittsburgh, Mr. George said the Steel City offers expansive opportunities for space research.

“We came from the University of Florida [in Gainesville, Fla.], which is a college town,” he explained. “It’s not a bad thing. It just makes you feel very isolated.”

The team found an initial shortage of space-minded researchers in Oakland despite the college presence, but realized that a pool of interdisciplinary minds was at their disposal — through various Pittsburgh-based institutions, tech startups and university researchers that might collaborate.

CHREC’s current project, which launched in space in February, includes two space processors that are attached to the International Space Station. The computers can take images of Earth every 10 seconds, sometimes capturing breathtaking views of deserts, volcanoes and even the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

“We’re really not equipped to know what to do with those,” Mr. George said, adding that he hopes to work with university geographers and astronomers as CHREC gains more recognition in Pittsburgh.


An image of STP-H5/CSP, the name of CHREC's current project, in coordination with NASA. Two space processors are attached to the International Space Station and controlled from Alan George's lab at the University of Pittsburgh, denoted by an arrow. This photo is from March 28, 2017. (Image courtesy of NASA)

Otherwordly research

The two processors sent out to space for the center’s mission, under the seemingly encrypted name “STP-H5-CSP,” are reconfigurable computers.

Reconfigurable computing means that a piece of hardware — here, the computer — has the ability to reconstruct itself to perform a new function based on the upload of new software, which dictates the computer’s shape; it’s software-controlled hardware.

Mr. George noted that CHREC’s current mission — and its next one, which will launch in late 2018 or early 2019 — places a heavy emphasis on producing computers that process data faster, weigh less, hold energy more efficiently and can withstand the trials of space.

Using the analogy of a consumer who constantly wants a faster smartphone with a better battery, he said space researchers have an insatiable thirst to create the most efficient computers.

But that’s not always simple, he said, since the kinds of work you would do to increase energy efficiency in both cell phones and space computers are at odds with attempts to increase processing speed.

Another goal is data capture. Space computers must be able to record data, often through photos, and then process it, sending it back to a computer on Earth, when necessary.

At CHREC, Pitt researchers examine such photos from their space computers, but not all of them.

“That takes a lot of computing power to download an image,” Mr. George said. “Because of the speed of light, it takes 15 minutes for a signal from space [near Mars] to reach Earth.”

And, he said, there are no batteries in space, so that power is precious.

The goal, he said, is to build autonomous space computers that can process information gathered, determine which images are important and automatically export them to computers on Earth.

CHREC has history with reconfigurable space computing.

In 2009, the center created Novo-G, which was widely considered to be the most powerful computer of its kind, before reconfigurable computing was even a mainstream field of study. Novo-G cut down the time and cost to build and deploy a supercomputer.

Since then, reconfigurable computing has become ubiquitous, at least among scientists.

“We’re not taking credit. We played a small part,” Mr. George said. “But we can change the way industry works, and the way industry operates.”


 The work CHREC researchers conduct can be implemented by its partners, who retain intellectual property rights (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)

Technology transfer and commercialization

As part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Center program, CHREC conducts research pertinent to industry while the work is still pre-competitive, or collaborative in a way that benefits all parties.

CHREC’s partners in industry, academic and government can later leverage the research for their own devices, whether to create products, processes, materials or applications. Among others, the center works with Boeing, Cisco Systems, IBM, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, NASA Kennedy Space Center and even Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Mr. George noted that each partner company gains intellectual property rights due to a relationship with CHREC.

“All of them are there to sell products or make a profit somehow,” he said. “That which is advantageous to space is advantageous to Earth.”

Microsoft, which is not a partner, also works in reconfigurable computing, Mr. George said. It’s likely that in the future this type of advanced research could lead to faster operating computers with better batteries for consumers.

For now, CHREC’s partners seem to be sticking to space.

Lockheed Martin, an aerospace, defense, security and advanced technologies company based in Bethesda, Md., will launch a CHREC space processor in 2018 as part of its SkyFire science satellite. Lockheed Martin will deliver its device to space on NASA’s Orion spacecraft. While in lunar orbit, the device will take high-quality images of the moon.

While CHREC works closely with companies, the center focuses even more on students.

Students are at the heart of everything the center does, Mr. George said, noting the constant flow of talent as students graduate and move on to full-time jobs.

“The students love it because their goal is to do industry-driven work, and this gives them that experience,” he said. “The demand for them is so high that they can’t count how many interviews they’ve gotten.”

Courtney Linder: clinder@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1707. Twitter: @LinderPG.

First Published: July 31, 2017, 1:30 p.m.

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Brad Shea, a graduate student, conducts diagnostic testing on prototype hardware that will eventually be sent to the International Space Station. The work is being done at the University of Pittsburgh Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing laboratory in Oakland.  (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)
An image of STP-H5/CSP, the name of CHREC's current project, in coordination with NASA. Two space processors are attached to the International Space Station and controlled from Alan George's lab at the University of Pittsburgh, denoted by an arrow. This photo is from March 28, 2017  (Image courtesy of NASA)
Graduate students Sebastian Sabogal, left, and Brad Shea conduct diagnostic testing on prototype hardware that will eventually be sent to the International Space Station. They are working at the University of Pittsburgh Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing laboratory in Oakland.  (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)
Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette
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