The UCD CASLSenseTile System

IntegratingSensors, Data, and Computation

for the Scientist

Joseph Kiniry

2UCD CASL

The SenseTile System: Context

Research Grant Summary• Agency: Science Foundation Ireland• Fund: Equipment Call 2007• Value: ~€750K (€250K sensors, €200K computation,

€85K datastore, €200K personnel)• Purpose: Facility for supporting large-scale experiments with

complex multimedia sensing and processing at terabyte scale.

Participating Scientists and Staff• Dr. Scott Rickard (PI) (EECS)• Prof. Chris Bean (Geology)• Dr. Marcus Greferath and Prof. Gary McGuire (Mathematics)• Dr. Joseph Kiniry (PI and lead), Dr. Chris Bleakley,

Dr. Simon Dobson, Prof. Paddy Nixon, Dr. Aaron Quigley (CSI)• Mr. Fred Clarke, Head of Research IT Service

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3UCD CASL

Scientific Goals

Traceable Scientific Data Collection and Management• data provenance

Distributed, Concurrent Scientific Computation• computational provenance

Initial Case Study• 100+ SenseTiles installed throughout the CASL

Secondary Case Studies• geological data collection and computation with Bean• coding and crypto experiments with Greferath and McGuire• theorem proving and model checking with Kiniry• hardware reconfigurability with Bleakley• gene sequencing and bioinformatics with School of Medicine,

Biology and Conway Institute

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4UCD CASL

SenseTile System Components

SenseTile: Sensing & Computation• 150x150x20mm package containing >12 built-in sensors, with

optional sensors (e.g., video camera) added via USB• arbitrary computational node running Linux connected via USB• autoconfiguring, wireless and wired communication, low power

Performing an Experiment• access to data via what looks like a filesystem• transparent use of parallel and distributed compute farm (HAWK)• GUI and API for advanced users and programmers• metadata include WWWWWH of a given experiment• primary goal: do not significantly change how the scientists work

Publication of Scientific Data and Computation• publish all data and program code as archived webs of experiments

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5UCD CASL

Current Status

SenseTiles• high-level design of SenseTiles complete, and layout and prototype

fabrication underway (with subcontracted mSemicon)

Compute Nodes• six different kinds of nodes identified and purchased

Datastore Purchased• 25TB mirrored, access via iSCSI

Compute Farm Installed• 16 quad-core AMD64s with 32-64GB RAM• 1 four-way dual-core AMD64 with 256GB RAM

Personnel• two offers made, one accepted, for Research Engineer positions

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