Report Number: CS-TR-86-1136
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: An Experiment in Knowledge-based Signal Understanding Using Parallel Architectures
Author: Brown, Harold
Author: Schoen, Eric
Author: Delagi, Bruce
Date: October 1986
Abstract: This report documents an experiment investigating the potential of a parallel computing architecture to enhance the performance of a knowledge-based signal understanding system. The experiment consisted of implementing and evaluating an application encoded in a parallel programming extension of Lisp and executing on a simulated multiprocessor system. The chosen application for the experiment was a knowledge-based system for interpreting pre-processed, passively acquired radar emissions from aircraft. The application was implemented in an experimental concurrent, asynchronous object-oriented framework. This framework, in turn, relied on the services provided by the underlying hardware system. The hardware system for the experiment was a simulation of various sized grids of processors with inter-processor communication via message-passing. The experiment investigated the effects of various high-level control strategies on the quality of the problem solution, the speedup of the overall system performance as a function of the number of processors in the grid, and some of the issues in implementing and debugging a knowledge-based system on a message-passing multiprocessor system. In this report we describe the software and (simulated) hardware components of the experiment and present the qualitative and quantitative experimental results.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/86/1136/CS-TR-86-1136.pdf