3/15/2024
ECE graduate student Nathaniel Bleier was awarded an IEEE Micro Top Picks and an Honorable Mention from the IEEE Computer Architecture Conferences of 2023. The IEEE Micro Top Picks and Honorable Mentions awards each honor 12 papers a year as significant and novel contributions to computer architecture with the potential for long-term impact.
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Students at The Grainger College of Engineering continue to push the boundaries in research: ECE graduate student Nathaniel Bleier was awarded an IEEE Micro Top Picks and an Honorable Mention from the IEEE Computer Architecture Conferences of 2023. The IEEE Micro Top Picks and Honorable Mentions awards each honor 12 papers a year as significant and novel contributions to computer architecture with the potential for long-term impact.
Computing smells with “Ahromaa”
“Programmable Olfactory Computing” was an IEEE Micro Top Pick as well as being nominated for the Best Paper Award at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA). The paper was co-authored by ECE professors Rakesh Kumar and Lav R Varshney and ECE alumna Abigail Wezelis.
When you smell an orange, the fruit molecules stimulate olfactory cells in your nose that send signals to the brain’s olfactory system. Olfaction is a psychological phenomenon when humans and animals perceive certain smells as positive or negative.
Computers can be taught to detect different odors. Odor sensors are advancing and the increased popularity of sensor-driven computing and wearable technology opens new potential avenues for odor sensing: for example, smart bandages that can detect infection, food freshness monitoring, and body odor detection and cancellation (through odor synthesis). However, many of these potential applications (small wearables such as bandages) will need a low-power, energy-efficient system to operate effectively.
Bleier’s team propose a new computer architecture called “Ahromaa” (A heterogeneous reconfigurable odor monitoring and analysis architecture). It’s the first sensor processor designed specifically for olfactory computing. Their study demonstrated that data memory organization can be improved in olfactory computing, leading to significant energy savings.
Computing in space
The paper “Space Microdatacenters” received an IEEE Micro Top Picks Honorable Mention. It was co-authored by ECE professor emeritus Gary R Swenson, ECE professor Rakesh Kumar and ECE graduate student Muhammad Husnain Mubarik.
Earth observation satellites in space gather vital data, from weather forecasting and storm tracking to using hyperspectral imagery for pollution monitoring. With technological advances, satellites can collect increasingly complex images and data sets. However, the ability to transmit these large quantities of data from space to Earth is limited.
Bleier’s team suggest the unorthodox solution of space microdatacenters: large computational satellites that can compute data in space, eliminating the need to send all the data to earth (most of the data can be discarded after the computing). “A microdatacenter provides compute, but it also provides power generation, thermal regulation and networking capabilities,” Bleier explains.
The paper proposes three space microdatacenter-communication co-design strategies to alleviate the bottleneck of communication between the microdatacenters and the earth observation satellites.
Bleier’s next research plan will follow up on the space microdatacenter research with a paper proposing a design for a space microdatacenter. His team have found that in space, the cost model for computer architecture needs to focus on energy efficiency – much more so compared to data centers based on Earth. “I think there’s going to be some very interesting architectural implications,” Bleier comments.