Core processing platforms designed for video, networking

GE's GFG500 Gigabit Ethernet Video Processor and the MCP500 Processor use the Tilera TILEPro64 many-core processor to compensate for demanding video and network processing in harsh environments by UAV's and ground vehicles.

September 23, 2011

GE Intelligent Platforms announced the 3U OpenVPX-REDI GFG500 Gigabit Ethernet Video Processor and the 3U OpenVPX-REDI MCP500 Processor. Using the Tilera TILEPro64 many-core processor, these rugged boards are designed for demanding video and network processing applications that will be deployed in harsh environments, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and ground vehicles.

The GFG500 is designed for demanding video processing applications and is pre-loaded with GE’s algorithms for capturing and processing multiple simultaneous video streams from Gigabit Ethernet-compliant video sources, providing optimum speed of implementation and time to market.

The MCP500 is a general purpose, many-core processor platform designed to provide customers with a powerful, flexible platform which can accelerate software applications through multiprocessing. The MCP500 is a rugged processing engine for netcentric applications such as packet processing, intrusion detection/deep packet inspection, unified threat management, network monitoring and forensics in tactical wireline and wireless environments.

“As unmanned vehicles – especially unmanned aerial vehicles – assume greater significance in the gathering and communication of intelligence, so the requirement to capture, process and distribute highly detailed video information is becoming an absolute requirement,” said Chris Jobling, Product Manager, GE Intelligent Platforms. “The GFG500 and MCP500 respond to this requirement by delivering outstanding video and networking performance within the compact, lightweight footprint of the 3U VPX format – while their ruggedness means that they can be deployed in the harshest of environments.”

The Tilera TILEPro64 700MHz processor at the heart of the GFG500 and MCP500 features an 8 x 8 grid of 64 general purpose processor cores for compute-intensive applications. This processor delivers high performance processing for demanding applications in image processing and networking by exploiting the natural parallelism inherent in applications such as video (pixel and frame parallel), network (session and packet parallel), and wireless (channel parallel). Both include four banks of 512MBytes DDR2 800 SDRAM together with two 10 Gigabit Ethernet XAUI interfaces and two 4-lane PCI Express interfaces to enable the building of complex systems, which can be configured as either root complex or end point mode.

Operating in conjunction with a single board computer and graphics processing unit, such as GE’s SBC340 and GRA111, the GFG500 has been successfully integrated into multi-sensor vision systems, capable of simultaneously processing ten 1392 x 1024 GigE Vision video streams at 30Hz.

www.ge.com

General Electric

– Edited by Chris Vavra, Control Engineering, www.controleng.com