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March 4, 2002 Volume 26, Issue 28 |
To survive in a constantly changing environment, living creatures learn various techniques of adaptation. Wouldn't it be great if complex computer software systems could do the same?
With that goal in mind, Mississippi State engineer Bharat Soni is part of a national research team formed two years ago to develop such an "intelligent" system. Director of the Center for Computational Systems at the Engineering Research Center, he is among several MSU engineers, computer scientists and physicists working on the Adaptive Software Project.
Now at its mid-point, the four-year, $5 million National Science Foundation-funded effort is a collaboration among Mississippi State, Cornell, Ohio State, and Clark Atlanta universities, and the College of William and Mary.
To explain the current inability of software to adapt to changes in resource requirements, Soni uses the example of a self-check line in the grocery store.
"Computers are programmed to know the regular price of goods," he said. "If there's a sale on a particular item, however, the machine needs to adapt."
On a much larger scale, that principle applies to very complex systems like those found in National Aeronautics and Space Administration launch vehicles, where changes might occur either in the computer's numerical program-its algorithms-or in the computer hardware.
"Our goal is to develop principles for building software systems that can adapt to changing conditions, not just to develop the adaptive systems," Soni said.
Mississippi State is the lead institution in one of two high-performance computer applications being undertaken to showcase the research team's efforts. In addition to Soni, the MSU team includes Dr. Joe F. Thompson, a Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering, who jointly serves with Soni and the Cornell researchers as principal investigators. Computer science assistant professor Edward A. Luke and associate professor Ioana Banicescu, along with ERC researchers Roy P. Koomullil and David S. Thompson, are other MSU team members.
In moving the project ahead, ASP team members recently welcomed some 40 other U.S. scientists and engineers to MSU for an evaluation of ideas and possible solutions for developing adaptive algorithms. Non-team representatives included scientists from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Texas at Austin, Department of Energy's Argonne and Sandia national laboratories, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Even though the multi-university team's goal is daunting, Soni expressed confidence this week that the project is moving in the right direction.
"We believe the concepts we are developing have the potential to significantly increase the efficiency of complex numerical simulations," he said.