High-performance Signal and Data Processing: Challenges in Astro- and Particle Physics and Radio Astronomy Instrumentation

27 Jan 2014, 08:00 → 31 Jan 2014, 18:00 Africa/Johannesburg

HUB 211 (University of the Witwatersrand)

Bruce Mellado (University of the Witwatersrand) , Michael Inggs (University of the Cape Town)

The workshop aims to bring together key people to discuss grand challenges facing the signal processing community in Radio Astronomy, Gamma Ray Astronomy and Particle Physics, and to provide knowledge sharing to delegates in both a lecture format, as well as a classroom environment for hands-on hardware and software training. General overviews and in-depth presentations will be given.

Workshop Flyer Flyer_DSP2014.jpg

Workshop Photo DPC_8681.JPG

Monday, 27 January

09:00 → 13:00 Plenary Overview Session I

09:00 Welcome

Speakers: Prof. John Carter (University of the Witwatersrand) , Dr Zeblon Vilakazi (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides Welcome_Address_Signal_and_Data_Processing_-_J_Carter_-_January_2014.pptx

09:30 Welcome from the DST

Speaker: Dr Thomas Auf der Heyde (DST)

Slides NSI_overview_Wits_Data_Processing_Conference_27_Jan_2014.pptx

09:50 Workshop Overview

Speakers: Prof. Bruce Mellado (University of the Witwatersrand) , Prof. Michael Inggs (University of Cape Town)

Slides HUB270114.pdf

10:10 Coffee Break

10:30 Cyber-infrastructure in South Africa

Speaker: Dr Daniel Adams (DST)

Slides Cyber_infrastructure_in_SA_v02.pptx

11:20 The SKA & MeerKAT

Speaker: Prof. Justin Jonas (SKA)

12:20 Group Photo

14:00 → 17:00 Plenary Overview Session II

14:00 The MeerKat Correlator & Beamformer

Speaker: Mr Francois Kapp (SKA)

Slides Kapp-HPSP-MeerKAT-2014.pdf

14:45 The Long Journey to the Higgs Boson and Beyond at the LHC

Speaker: Dr Peter Jenni (CERN)

Slides HPSDP2014.WITS.LHC.Higgs.pdf

15:40 Coffee Break

16:10 The national SA-CERN programme

Speaker: Prof. Jean Cleymans (University of Cape Town)

Tuesday, 28 January

09:00 → 12:30 Plenary Session I

09:00 Observing to the Very Edge of a Black Hole Using Wideband Signal Processing

Speaker: Dr Jonathan Weintroub (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

Paper version 3 1 June 2014

Slides hpdsp_jan2014_weintroub_nopol.pdf the Keynote version with animations, zipped.

09:45 Imaging the Radio Sky

Speaker: Dr Andreas Faltenbaher (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides imagingtheradiosky.pdf

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 The Wits Astronomy Data Center: A hands-on data analysis center for multi-frequency astronomy

Speakers: Dr Nukri Komin (University of the Witwatersrand) , Prof. Sergio Colafrancesco (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides Colafrancesco_Wits2014.pdf

12:00 User Perspective of Data Analysis Flow with the ATLAS Detector

Speaker: Dr German Carrillo-Montolla (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides GD_CARRILLO_MONTOYA_presentation_280114.pdf

13:30 → 17:30 Plenary session II

13:30 The Computing Model of ATLAS

Speaker: Dr Sahal Yacoob (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

Slides ATLAS_Computing.pptx

14:15 An Overview of SANSA Earth Observation Data Processing and Storage: Challenges and Opportunities

Speaker: Dr Paida Mangara (SANSA)

Slides Big_Data_from_Earth_Observation_Satellites-An_overview_opportunities_and_challenges.pdf

15:00 Interferometry

Speaker: Prof. David Davidson (University of Stellenbosch)

Slides 2014_HP_Signal_Data_Proc_Interferometry.pdf

15:30 Coffee Break

16:00 Readout Electronics of the Alice Detector

Speaker: Dr Tom Dietel (University of Cape Town)

Slides 2014.01-Wits.pptx

16:45 The Data Pipeline of the AGILE Space Telescope

Speaker: Prof. Andrew Chen (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides Chen_AGILE_2014-01-29.ppt

Wednesday, 29 January

09:00 → 13:15 Plenary Session III

09:00 The upgrade of the ATLAS readout system

Speaker: Mr Alberto Valero (Instituto de Física Corpuscular (Universidad de Valencia-CSIC))

Slides UpgradeReadoutATLAS_Johannesburgv5.ppt

09:45 Upgrade of the ATLAS TileCal Electronics

Speaker: Dr Carlos Solans (CERN)

Slides Carlos_HPSDP_2014.pdf Carlos_HPSDP_2014.pptx

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 MeerKAT RFI Issues and signal processing challenges

Speaker: Mr Jason Manley (SKA)

Slides JManley-meerkat_dbe_challenges.pdf

11:45 FPGA Toolflows: CASPER and Beyond

Speaker: Mr Wesley New (SKA)

Slides Wesley_New,_FPGA_Toolflows,_Casper_and_Beyond.pdf

14:30 → 17:30 Hands-on Session I

RHINO/ROACH

Thursday, 30 January

09:00 → 12:30 Plenary Session IV

09:00 Opti-NUM Solutions (Matlab): Distributed Computing

Slides MATLAB_Presentation.pdf MATLAB_Presentation.pptx

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 White Rabbit

Speaker: Mr Grzegorz Daniluk (CERN)

Slides GDaniluk_WhiteRabbit.pdf

11:45 The RHINO Digital Processing Skills Development Initiative: An integrated review of the platform, resources and training structures

Speaker: Dr Simon Winberg (University of Cape Town)

Slides Presentation slides

14:00 → 17:30 Hands-on Session II

GRID Tutorial

14:00 → 17:30 Hands-on Session III

RHINO/ROACH

Friday, 31 January

09:00 → 10:30 Parallel Session I - Digital Backend Processing Hardware & Tools

09:00 A Scalable Heterogeneous Architecture for Software Defined Radio on the RHINO platform

Speaker: Mr Matthew Bridges (University of Cape Town)

Slides A scalable heterogeneous computing architecture for software defined radio on RHINO

09:20 An intuitive Parallel Programming Tool-flow for Software Defined Radio Signal Processing on Heterogeneous Architectures

Speaker: Mr Lerato Mohapi (University of Cape Town)

Slides LMohapi_HPSPSA_Workshop_2014.pdf

09:40 Evaluation of Open-Source High-Level Tool-Flows for Rapid Prototyping of SDR Applications

Speaker: Mr Khobatha Setetemela (University of Cape Town (RRSG))

Slides Survey_of_Open-Source_High-Level_Tool-Flows_for_Rapid_Prototyping_SDR_Waveforms(final).pptx

09:00 → 10:30 Parallel Session II - High-throughput supercomputing & performance testing (1)

09:00 Application of Data Intensive Science to the Electrical Energy Grid

Speakers: Mr Albert Dove (University of Witwatersrand) , Dr Ivan Hofsajer (University of Witwatersrand)

Slides Application%20of%20data%20intensive%20science%20to%20the%20electrical.pptx

09:20 ARM processors as a low cost alternative tool for computation of FFTs for radio astronomy

Speaker: Mr Mitchell Cox (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides ARM_processors_as_a_low-cost_alternative_tool_for_computation_of_FFTs_for_radio_astronomy.pptx

09:35 ATLAS GPU Trigger Studies

Speaker: Mr Timothy Bristow (University of Edinburgh)

Slides GPU_powered_HLT_Trigger_v3.pdf

09:50 CPU Benchmarking performance for ARM Processors

Speaker: Mr Robert Reed (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides CPU_Benchmarking_of_ARM_Processors.pptx

10:05 RAM Benchmarking of ARM-based SoCs

Speakers: Mr Gerhard Harmsen (University of the Witwatersrand) , Mr Thomas Wrigley (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides Slides

10:31 → 10:59 Coffee break

11:00 → 12:40 Parallel Session III - High-throughput supercomputing & performance testing (2)

11:00 Performance Analysis of virtualization for high performance computing

Speaker: Mr Matthew Cawood (University of Cape Town)

Slides matthew_cawood_presentation.ppsx

11:20 Massive Parallelism for Combinatorial Problems

Speaker: Mr Edward Steere (University of the Witwatersrand)

11:35 Optimising Linux Operating System on ARM Architecture

Speaker: Mr Jonathan Padavatan (Ithemba Labs)

Slides Performance_tuning_the_Linux_Kernel.pdf

11:50 Likelihood Analysis of Higgs anomalous couplings

Speaker: Mr Gilad Amar (University of Witwatersrand)

Slides Gilad_Amar_-_Higgs_Presentation.pdf

12:05 Massively Parallel High-Performance Ray-Tracing in Astrophysics Simulations

Speaker: Mr Warren Carlson (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides Massively_Parallel_High-Performance_Ray-Tracing_in_Astrophysics.pdf

11:00 → 12:30 Parallel Session IV - High-speed Signal Processing Platforms and Software

11:00 Noise Sensitivity of VHF Broadband Interferometers

Speaker: Mr Chih-Fong (Brady ) Wen (University of KwaZulu Natal)

11:20 LED Board for the Tile Calorimeter of the ATLAS Detector at the LHC

Speaker: Mr Titus Masike (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides LED_Board_Presentation.ppt

11:35 Prometeo, the next generation test-bench for the front-end electronics of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter upgrade phase-II

Speaker: Dr Xifeng Ruan (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides prometeopresentation.pdf

11:50 An ATCA framework for the ATLAS Front to Back End Electronics for the Phase II Upgrade at the LHC

Speaker: Mr Robert Reed (University of the Witwatersrand)

Slides ATCA_Framework.pptx

14:00 → 17:00 Hands-on Session IV

RHINO/ROACH