BIB-VERSION:: CS-TR-v2.0
          ID:: STAN//CS-TR-86-1136
       ENTRY:: May 01, 1995
ORGANIZATION:: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
       TITLE:: An Experiment in Knowledge-based Signal Understanding Using
               Parallel Architectures
        TYPE:: Technical Report
      AUTHOR:: Brown, Harold
      AUTHOR:: Schoen, Eric
      AUTHOR:: Delagi, Bruce
        DATE:: October 1986
       PAGES:: 46
    ABSTRACT:: This report documents an experiment investigating the
               potential of a parallel computing architecture to enhance the
               performance of a knowledge-based signal understanding system.
               The experiment consisted of implementing and evaluating an
               application encoded in a parallel programming extension of
               Lisp and executing on a simulated multiprocessor system.

               The chosen application for the experiment was a
               knowledge-based system for interpreting pre-processed,
               passively acquired radar emissions from aircraft. The
               application was implemented in an experimental concurrent,
               asynchronous object-oriented framework. This framework, in
               turn, relied on the services provided by the underlying
               hardware system. The hardware system for the experiment was a
               simulation of various sized grids of processors with
               inter-processor communication via message-passing.

               The experiment investigated the effects of various high-level
               control strategies on the quality of the problem solution,
               the speedup of the overall system performance as a function
               of the number of processors in the grid, and some of the
               issues in implementing and debugging a knowledge-based system
               on a message-passing multiprocessor system.

               In this report we describe the software and (simulated)
               hardware components of the experiment and present the
               qualitative and quantitative experimental results.
       NOTES:: [Adminitrivia V1/Prg/19950501]
         END:: STAN//CS-TR-86-1136