Reconfigurable computing programs AFRL intern for future goals Published Sept. 3, 2010 By Wilton Glenn Team Eglin Public Affairs EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, FLA. -- Because it would take a lot to reconfigure a worldwide military network, an intern here is setting his sights on just one computer. David Dzenitis is making a name for himself during his summer internship at the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate. At 29 years old, the University of Florida graduate student is a researcher at the Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing. "What he did this summer stirred up a major spin off at his school," said Lloyd Reshard, a branch chief at AFRL. "It's going to affect the reconfigurable computing industry." The insider, computational student wizard is helping the Air Force to initiate the standard for describing computer hardware boards. Commonly, most documents on the internet are in code called "Extensible Markup Language," allowing for the easy interchange of documents. This transition utility is how they created the prototype. "Specifically, our translations were specified in something called XSLT, which is how XML describes how a translation is to be carried out," said Mr. Dzenitis. Under the guidance of his supervisor, Mr. Reshard, and in coordination with his mentor Jonathan Shaver, David has been given the set up for success. "We started by doing a survey of how existing commercial tools represent boards in their own proprietary formats," said the student. "My work specifically was to find a way to catalog the architecture of hardware boards in XML and develop associated utilities to convert these files into ones that would allow us to use commercial development tools to program the boards." Mr. Dzenitis came up with the essential tools, hardware and the translation utilities. These items generally are not used in the normal world outside of the military. AFRL plans to use his way for describing computer hardware boards to implement the design for future software adaptations. "David's work makes it easier for researchers to use high level languages to program reconfigurable hardware," said Mr. Reshard. "Reconfigurable hardware offers improved computational performance over traditional microprocessor hardware." Commercially available high level programming tools are generally tied to specific reconfigurable hardware which is not suitable for some military applications. AFRL is sponsoring CHREC to help advance state-of-the-art reconfigurable computering, he said. Seeing the "plumbing" of a typical board and expounding on how to restructure it to be more efficient is what Mr. Dzenitis' board reprogramming accomplishes. "We were able to automatically generate board support packages for different development environments by using the one description in my format," said the computer wiz. According to Mr. Reshard, reconfigurable computing is the 'in' field for programmers. "David's research provided a pivotal point, however our ultimate goal is to make it as easy to program reconfigurable hardware as it is to program a desktop computer," he said. "Given the initial reaction to my prototype of my work this summer, it certainly appears there is a lot of interest in the work," Mr. Dzenitis said. "As far as I know, they are moving forward with fully implementing my schema and furthering the associated software utilities. The work I did with AFRL this summer has already opened up new opportunities for me." The student attributes his success to the diverse training he received from the Air Force. "My prior background and current experience with AFRL helped me produce my own way of coming up with hardware boards descriptions," he said. "My dream system was conceptualized and executed." The intern Airman is moving onward and upward for enhancing the Air Force objectives: Global Reach, Vigilance, and Power.