This award is for the purchase of two I/O nodes for use with an Intel iPSC/2 computer system. The system supports research in several areas including the development of a C++ translator and compiler for MIMD architectures, neural networks for image processing and machine vision, and parallel algorithms for high level direction finding. There are several problems that can be naturally adapted to parallel computer architectures. Two such problems are studied under this award. The first is research in neural networks. These networks have been proposed as natural models for vision and are easily simulated on parallel computers. The hope is that real time vision can be accomplished with a complex enough network. The second problem is in signal processing. The particular application is automatic direction finding which is a problem whose solution is important in sonar, surveillance, and seismic application areas. Massive computation is needed in order to reduce errors introduced by noise in the signals. The final area of research is in the development of an interpreter and compiler for the programming language C++. This project will support other projects by providing a compiler for a modern high level programming language.
