UU Research Pushing Back the Frontiers of Space
Cutting edge research at the University of Ulster into how to make complex computers and communications systems manage themselves could power the next generation of US space probes, it was revealed today.
Roy Sterritt, from the University’s Computer Science Research Institute, was today addressing NASA scientists in Washington about his research.
Mr Sterritt said that current computing networks are now so complex and difficult to manage that by 2010, 220 million people – greater than the current working population of the USA – will have to be employed as IT support workers just to keep them running. He argued that the only viable long-term solution is to create computer systems that can manage themselves. Mr Sterritt and his team at UU – along with experts from BT – are exploring ways to enable telecommunications and computing networks to become self-healing.
NASA wanted to hear about this type of computing – known as autonomic computing – and invited Mr Sterrit to its Goddard Flight Center, an honour normally reserved for scientists from top US universities. Autonomic computing operates like the human body’s autonomic nervous system which self-manages biological systems. It regulates vital functions such as telling the heart how fast to beat and monitors and adjusts blood flow without conscious effort.
Mr Sterritt’s research is aimed at developing computer systems that would work in the same way without requiring constant human intervention. Mike Hinchey, director of NASA’s Software Engineering Laboratory, said: “Autonomic computing research has been identified by NASA as having potential to contribute to their goals of autonomy and cost reduction in future space exploration missions. “ANTS – Autonomous Nano-Technology Swarm – is one such mission that will launch sometime between 2020 and 2030 (any day now in terms of NASA missions). The mission is viewed as the prototype for how many future unmanned missions will be developed and how future space exploration will exploit autonomous and autonomic behaviour.”
Last year Mr Sterritt was awarded a BT Exact Short-Term Research Fellowship, based at BT’s Riverside Tower complex in Belfast to help drive forward his research work.
Media Contact
More Information:
http://www.ulster.ac.uk/news/releases/2004/1428.htmlAll latest news from the category: Physics and Astronomy
This area deals with the fundamental laws and building blocks of nature and how they interact, the properties and the behavior of matter, and research into space and time and their structures.
innovations-report provides in-depth reports and articles on subjects such as astrophysics, laser technologies, nuclear, quantum, particle and solid-state physics, nanotechnologies, planetary research and findings (Mars, Venus) and developments related to the Hubble Telescope.
Newest articles
Targeted Printing
Single-cell technology… Bright prospects for personalized medicine: Experts from the Fraunhofer Institute for Microengineering and Microsystems IMM harness their know-how in microfluidics and single-cell technologies to print organ structures. They…
Cobalt-copper tandem converts carbon dioxide to ethanol
Positioning cobalt and copper in close proximity on an electrode facilitates selective conversion of the greenhouse gas CO₂ to ethanol / Prime example of sustainable chemical research. The continuing release…
How To Replace PFAS
Hardly any other chemical substance can compete with PFAS, due to their unique properties. That explains why it is so hard to find a replacement for these toxic “forever chemicals”,…