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The Computer Systems Group:
Computer Architecture, Programming Languages and Algorithms
The Computer Systems group within the ANU College of Engineering
and Computer Science maintains a diverse and successful program of
internationally recognized research Our interests are drawn together
from the principal themes of computer architecture,
programming languages and algorithms. Our active projects
includes: robotics, novel computer architectures, bio-engineering,
next-generation programming languages, high performance computing,
parallel programming models, linear algebra, programming language
transformation and AI techniques for run-time optimization.
The group also supports a teaching program beginning with the
computer systems fundamentals and progressing to specialized topics
in the above research areas.
Previous Events
Current Members
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Academics: (collective contact systems[at]cs.anu.edu.au)
Affiliated Staff: Bob Edwards
Postdoctoral Fellows: Dr Ganesh Venkateshwara, Dr Rui Yang
Research Students:
Joseph Antony, Warren Armstrong, Muhammad Atif, Pat Bernardi, Jie
Cai, Arrin Daley,
Ahmed El-zein, Robin Garner, Daniel Frampton, Pete Janes, Josh
Milthorpe, Jaison
Mulerikkal, Danny Robson, Jin Wong.
Undergraduate/Project Students: Ben Murphy, James Barker,
Michael Chapman, Travis Stenborg
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Teaching Program
Software engineers who do not understand parallel [multicore] processing
will become obsolete!
-- Professor Rudolph Eigenmann,
keynote address at the ISPA'06 conference
The Department of Computer Science offers an exciting and contemporary
teaching program in Computer Systems, integrated into its computer
science and software engineering curricula. The program develops
fundamental concepts from second year, to state-of-the-art advanced
topics in honors and postgraduate years. Courses include:
- COMP2300
Introduction to Computer Systems first provides an
introduction to the programming language of computer systems, C. It uses
the PeANUt illustrative computer to shows how C program are compiled and
executed, and the basic concepts of computer architecture. This is
followed up with an overview of contemporary computer, operating systems and
networks.
- COMP2310
Concurrent and Distributed Systems provides an in-depth
study of the fundamental issues of concurrency, which are crucial
in operating systems and networks. These are also foundational
to high performance and multicore programming.
- COMP3300
Operating Systems looks in detail at the services provided by,
and the internals of, an existing operating system to see how each part
is constructed and integrated into the whole.
- COMP3310
Computer Networks provides an in-depth study of the issues in reliable
computer network design, including layering and protocols, and programming.
- COMP3320
High Performance Scientific Computation covers data modelling,
programming (including shared memory models) and program performance
issues for high performance scientific applications.
- COMP4330
Real-Time and Embedded Systems provides foundations of real-time
analysis and implementation of the (highly concurrent) systems which
are interconnected with the physical world (embedded systems).
- COMP4300
Parallel Systems provides a practically oriented introduction to
the special case of concurrency of shared and distributed memory
parallel computers.
- COMP8320
Multicore Computing (new! to be first offered in 2009!) provides an
in-depth study of the principles, the architecture and programming
paradigms of contemporary and emerging multicore (parallel) processors.
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The
Bachelor of Information Technology and the
Master of Computing have Computer Systems specializations.
Project courses
with topics in our leading edge research programs are available to all
computing students. These provide a `capstone' to their respective
degrees:
Research Program
The group has a number of active research projects, associated around the following themes:
- Bio-Engineering:
Alistair Rendell, Steve Blackburn and other researchers at ANU are
working on a multidisciplinary collaborative project with IBM Research.
The aim is to develop new tools for bio-engineering and apply them to
the study of ion channel systems (entities that regulate the flow of
ions across a cell membrane). Our approach spans computer architecture,
language implementation, and computational algorithms.
- Performance Analysis:
Performance analysis is a major theme within the Computer Systems group.
As part of this effort, Peter Strazdins has led the development of a
number of architectural simulators and associated tools. Steve Blackburn
leads the development effort for the de facto standard Java performance
analysis benchmarking suite (DaCapo). A paper from the group on
performance analysis and the methodology recently featured in the
prestigious Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery
(Aug 2008).
- Advanced Runtime Systems:
Steve Blackburn leads an active research program addressing the
efficient implementation of managed runtimes. This work involves active
collaboration with IBM, Intel, U. Texas and Purdue U. The work targets
both emerging languages (such as X10) and the implementation of existing
languages on emerging hardware. In addition to regular publications, the
projects output includes the development and maintenance of widely used
research software.
- Robotics:
Uwe Zimmer leads research on autonomous vehicles, including submersibles
and aircraft. Autonomous flight of small helicopters in real world,
outdoor scenarios is a challenge for all areas of robotics. This project
focuses on the development of new sensor combinations for robustness at
small sizes.
- Parallel Processing:
Parallel programming is a theme which encompasses all of the Computer
System group, in various ways. Alistair Rendell leads a long-running
research project with Sun Microsystems and Gaussian Inc, developing
computational chemistry applications on parallel computers. Alistair
Rendell and Peter Strazdins work with researchers at Intel and Tsukuba
University to make cluster computers more easily programmable. Alistair
Rendell and Eric McCreath are working on harnessing the enormous
computational power of graphics processors (GPUs and the IBM Cell
processor) collaborating with NICTA researchers on statistical machine
learning applications. Uwe Zimmer is investigating the use of these
devices for robotics.
Peter Strazdins, in collabroation with Platform CDomputing,
is investigating the applicability of the service-oriented paradigm
for numerical HPC applications.
- Operating Systems:
Peter Strazdins leads research on the application of
virtualization technology to high performance
computing. This project offers the potential for far
more efficient use of energy and hardware, with also
improved usability. Eric McCreath works with the Linux
kernel, and has been involved in improving its
performance.
Click on this link for our
research portrait.
Links
Projects within the Group:
CC-NUMA,
HPNumSOA, Jabberwocky
projects
PhD Student Posters from the 2009 CECS Poster day.
Current Industrial Partners:
Gaussian Inc,
IBM Research,
Intel,
Platform (TM) Computing,
Sun Microsystems
Collaborating Institutions:
University of Adelaide
(DHPC Group),
APTSC,
Purdue University,
University of Texas (Austin),
University of Tsukuba
(HPCS Lab)
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