One of the key scientific projects of the SKA radio telescope is a large survey for pulsars both in isolated and binary systems. The data rate of the pulsar search engine is expected to reach 0.6TeraSamples/sec. For the purposes of extracting hidden pulses from these streams, we need a complex search strategy which allows us to explore a three dimensional parameter space and it requires approximately 10PetaFlops. This problem is well suited for a parallel computing engine, but the dimensions of SKA bring this problem to a new level of complexity. An up-to-date study shows that this operation would require more than 2000 GPUs. In this report we will present possible mitigation strategies.

Date Published: 28 July 2014
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9147, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V, 91479B (28 July 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2056561

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9147:
Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V
Suzanne K. Ramsay; Ian S. McLean; Hideki Takami, Editor(s)