Hermes Autonomous Vision System

Abstract

This paper deals with the modeling of an extended quartet multiprocessor kernel used for the evaluation of the Hermes system. Hermes is a multiprocessor hybrid system architecture used as a machine vision system. The functionality of Hermes requires an asynchronous information flow upwards and downwards, where "orders"(in a form of code and data) go down and "abstracted" or processed picture information goes up along the system's hierarchy. Moreover, the overall functional behavior of the Hermes system can be considered as an extended quartet kernel in an abstracted manner. The extended quartet kernel studied here presents either a memory-to-memory (M-M) or a bus-to-bus (B-B) connectivity. The evaluation of these two kernel's configurations (M-M, B-B) defines that the structural design of the Hermes system will be based on the M-M scheme. When failures occur on the quartet kernel, however, the M-M scheme will be converted into a B-B one by using a failure recovery procedure. The evaluation of the quartet kernel configurations is based on a probabilistic model. Failures and recovery procedures on the quartet kernel are discussed and the performance evaluation of the kernel (under failures) is also provided.