System-level analysis of network interfaces for hierarchical MPSoCs

Network Interfaces (NIs) are used in Multiprocessor System-on-Chips (MPSoCs) to connect CPUs to a packet switched Network-on-Chip. In this work we introduce a new NI architecture for our hierarchical CoreVA-MPSoC. The CoreVA-MPSoC targets streaming applications in embedded systems. The main contribution of this paper is a system-level analysis of different NI configurations, considering both software and hardware costs for NoC communication. Different configurations of the NI are compared using a benchmark suite of 10 streaming applications. The best performing NI configuration shows an average speedup of 20 for a CoreVA-MPSoC with 32 CPUs compared to a single CPU. Furthermore, we present physical implementation results using a 28 nm FD-SOI standard cell technology. A hierarchical MPSoC with 8 CPU clusters and 4 CPUs in each cluster running at 800MHz requires an area of 4.56mm2.

Intimate transactions : art, exhibition and interaction within distributed network environments

The broad research questions of the book are: How can successful, interdisciplinary collaboration contribute to research innovation through Practice-led research? What contributes to the design, production and curation of successful new media art? What are the implications of exhibiting it across dual sites for artists, curators and participant audiences? Is it possible to create an 'intimate transaction' between people who are separated by vast distances but joined by interfaces and distributed networks? Centred on a new media work of the same name by the Transmute Collective (led by Keith Armstrong), this book provides insights from multidisciplinary perspectives. Visual, sound and performance artists, furniture designers, spatial architects, technology systems designers, and curators who collaborated in the production of Intimate Transactions discuss their design philosophies, working processes and resolution of this major new media work. Analytical and philosophical essays by international writers complement these writings on production. They consider how new media art, like Intimate Transactions, challenges traditional understandings of art, curatorial installation and exhibition experience because of the need to take into account interaction, the reconfiguration of space, co-presence, performativity and inter-site collaboration.

Controlling current and voltage type interfaces in power-hardware-in-the-loop simulations

The usual practice to study a large power system is through digital computer simulation. However, the impact of large scale use of small distributed generators on a power network cannot be evaluated strictly by simulation since many of these components cannot be accurately modelled. Moreover, the network complexity makes the task of practical testing on a physical network nearly impossible. This study discusses the paradigm of interfacing a real-time simulation of a power system to real-life hardware devices. This type of splitting a network into two parts and running a real-time simulation with a physical system in parallel is usually termed as power-hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) simulation. The hardware part is driven by a voltage source converter that amplifies the signals of the simulator. In this paper, the effects of suitable control strategy on the performance of PHIL and the associated stability aspects are analysed in detail. The analyses are validated through several experimental tests using an real-time digital simulator.