NDLI: Radio Astronomy Beam Forming on Many-Core Architectures

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Sclocco, A. Varbanescu, A.L. Mol, J.D. van Nieuwpoort, R.V.
Copyright Year	2012
Abstract	Traditional radio telescopes use large steel dishes to observe radio sources. The largest radio telescope in the world, LOFAR, uses tens of thousands of fixed, omni-directional antennas instead, a novel design that promises ground-breaking research in astronomy. Where traditional tele-scopes use custom-built hardware, LOFAR uses software to do signal processing in real time. This leads to an instrument that is inherently more flexible. However, the enormous data rates and processing requirements (tens to hundreds of teraflops) make this extremely challenging. The next-generation telescope, the SKA, will require exa flops. Unlike traditional instruments, LOFAR and SKA can observe in hundreds of directions simultaneously, using beam forming. This is useful, for example, to search the sky for pulsars (i.e. rapidly rotating highly magnetized neutron stars). Beam forming is an important technique in signal processing: it is also used in WIFI and 4G cellular networks, radar systems, and health-care microwave imaging instruments. We propose the use of many-core architectures, such as 48-core CPU systems and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), to accelerate beam forming. We use two different frameworks for GPUs, CUDA and Open CL, and present results for hardware from different vendors (i.e. AMD and NVIDIA). Additionally, we implement the LOFAR beam former on multi-core CPUs, using Open MP with SSE vector instructions. We use auto-tuning to support different architectures and implementation frameworks, achieving both platform and performance portability. Finally, we compare our results with the production implementation, written in assembly and running on an IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer. We compare both computational and power efficiency, since power usage is one of the fundamental challenges modern radio telescopes face. Compared to the production implementation, our auto-tuned beam former is 45 -- 50 times faster on GPUs, and 2 -- 8 times more power efficient. Our experimental results lead to the conclusion that GPUs are an attractive solution to accelerate beam forming.
Starting Page	1105
Ending Page	1116
File Size	984466
Page Count	12
File Format	PDF
ISBN	9781467309752
ISSN	15302075
DOI	10.1109/IPDPS.2012.102
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2012-05-21
Publisher Place	China
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Telescopes Graphics processing unit Radio astronomy Algorithm design and analysis Instruction sets Hardware auto tuning many-core architectures beam forming
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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