Enabling FPGAs for future deep space exploration missions: Improving fault-tolerance and computation density with R3TOS

Abstract

Future deep space exploration missions will require small, lightweight, low-power, fault-tolerant, autonomous and durable onboard electronic systems. In this paper we present R3TOS, a novel approach for online scheduling and allocating different pieces of circuitry onto partially reconfigurable FPGAs to match the specific computation needs at all times. R3TOS targets two main objectives: (i) obtain the best performance per unit of device's area and per unit of consumed energy and, (ii) minimize the impact of device's degradation on performance.