Victor Gusev Lesau’s work on making hardware more like software has earned him a best paper award at the 2012 NASA/ESA Conference on Adaptive Hardware and Systems. Lesau has been working in FAS’s iDEA Lab (Intelligent / Distributed Enterprise Automation Laboratory), and successfully defended his graduate thesis last week.  His research is focused on adaptive hardware concurrent systems.

Lesau’s award-winning paper, "Embedded Linux for concurrent dynamic partially reconfigurable FPGA systems,” introduces computer architecture and software systems that could allow part of a microchip to be altered without affecting the other parts.

“The demonstrated architecture enables the hardware to manage itself without software, leaving the latter to concentrate on its high-level tasks," explains Lesau. “Such flexibility is attractive for many applications requiring adaptive system behavior and true hardware concurrency.” This research can be applied to systems that operate a wide variety of devices, including machinery, aircraft, vehicles and mobile phones.

Lesau emphasizes the role of his co-authors in his achievement: “The success of this project and paper would not be possible without the co-authors, who have put in significant effort to make it a reality. Thanks to Edward Chen, Dorian Sabaz and Dr. William A. Gruver."

Forty papers and posters were presented during the 2012 NASA/ESA Conference, which took place in Nuremberg, Germany, from June 25-28; the annual conference is sponsored by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (IEEE-CAS) and is organized in cooperation with ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM-SIGDA). 

When asked about the conference experience, Lesau says, “the most memorable part of the conference was meeting great people inspired by space research. Their ideas are realized in real equipment, which is flying aboard numerous spacecrafts, and serving for the good of humanity.”