A Self-Adaptive Hardware Architecture

Joan Cabestany, Department of Electronic Engineering, Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain

Abstract: Self-configuration is a basic principle that permits a programmable or configurable system to modify autonomously (i.e., without the need for an external intervention) its functionality at a given time. This modification is usually driven by an optimization process that tries to match the behavior of the system with the constraints posed by the application it is intended to be solved.

The main characteristic to be present in an actual self-adaptive system is the capability of determining its configuration at a given time in an autonomous and distributed way. This implies that the following properties should be supported at the hardware level by any architecture intended to be used as an efficient platform for self-adaptivity:

• Dynamic and distributed self-routing
• Dynamic and distributed self-placement
• Scalability
• Distributed control

In this talk, the general ideas and main details of a hardware architectural approach following the mentioned properties will be presented. Main work has been developed, and it is still going-on in the frame of the AETHER project (Self-Adaptive Embedded Technologies for Pervasive Computing Architectures. Contract IST-027611).

About the speaker: Joan Cabestany is a professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering (UPC). He received his degree in Telecommunication Engineering in 1976, and the PhD in 1982, both from the Technical University of Catalonia. He is the responsible of the AHA ("Advanced Hardware Architectures") research group, with expertise on reconfigurable hardware, electronic system design, advanced hardware architectures, microelectronics and VLSI design. Additionally, he is the director of the CETpD (Centre for Dependency Care and Autonomous Living), and an active member of its staff. He has been the UPC responsible in 6 EU funded projects, and their main interest topics are artificial intelligence and electronic technology applied to different topics.

Presentation slides with audio