Technology

Exploiting Reconfigurable HW/SW

RadPC – Radiation Tolerant Computing

RadPC takes a new approach to providing radiation tolerance in space computing. Instead of trying to avoid the impacts of space radiation by modifying the underlying materials of integrated circuits (i.e., radiation hardening), RadPC implements a novel computing architecture on a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) that expects faults to occur and is designed to recover from them. Using a series of patented fault recovery procedures, RadPC is able to continue foreground operation in the presence of radiation-induced faults and repair faulted circuity in the background. The RadPC technology has been tested on high-altitude balloons (8x), on sounding rockets (2x), on internal tests on the International Space Station (3x), and on small satellites (2x). In 2024 RadPC will be demonstrated on the lunar surface through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.