SBIR-STTR Award

Illgen Simulation Technologies, Inc. (ISTI) will design and assemble a Parallel Processing System capable of supporting an unlimited variety of highly complex modeling projects. Using parallel system processing technology originally developed by NASA, complicated, mathematically intense models that typically take several days to run will be reduced to only a few hours. The ISTI team will build high speed parallel virtual machines (PVM) that will run parallelized versions of models, using standard message passing libraries and message passing interfaces (MPI), or the most current technology to ensure portability. Our software engineering team will modify or re-write government-owned source code, to run in a parallel processing environment. The system will be fully capable of supporting a wide variety of complex mathematical models, such as biological tissue, inorganic substances, human and animal anatomy and physiology, and biodynamic injury models. The high speed proessing capability of this system may be applied to any research project tht requires modeling. These include studies on acceleration impact injury, specific absorption rates (SAR) from exposure to radio frequency radiation, environmental impact studies, and biochemical defense

During Phase I of this SBIR, ISTI successfully proved that parallel-processing technology can significantly reduce the processing time for complex modeling tasks that normally require "super computers". ISTI designed and developed a parallel computer system to calculate specific absorption rate (SAR) resulting from exposure to radion frequency (RF) fields using cost effective PC technology. ISTI converted finite-difference time-domain code from sequential Fortran program to a parallel version written i C++. This decreased the processing time required for predicting the SAR in a rate model from 5 hours to 10 minutes.For Phase II, ISTI proposes to build a large (as many as 150 nodes) system and convert the "Whole Man Model" to run in the parallel environment. This system will support multiple, more complex models. This technology will draw cutting edge industries to San Antonio, bringing jobs and revenue to the local economy. The system, ISTS's designs and custom software expertise will be made commerically available to support governmental, industrial and academic agencies on a "fee-for-service" basis. Phase II will bring a commercially viable Bioresearch Imaging Sources and Knowledge (BRISK) Center for the advancement and transfer of parallel processing technology to support modeling, simulation and research efforts.

Keywords:
PARALLEL PROCESSING, HIGH SPEED PROCESSING, BIORESEARCH IMAGING, MODELING, SIMULATION AND RESEARCH