Persistent surveillance is a relatively new technology blending multiple sensor paths together to give a highly detailed overview of an area or battlefield. Persistent surveillance has been used extensively in Afghanistan to monitor cities and areas around military bases to enable commanders to determine if insurgents have possibly planted IEDs and to keep our war fighters safe. Massive data storage and fast retrieval in addition to processing highly complex video algorithms are at the heart of this technology.
The client, having been a long-time customer, contacted CP Technologies to design a new rack mounted solution for their persistent surveillance system. The application demanded the maximum amount of RAID data storage, two full-height Tesla K40 GPUs, dual Core-i7 processors and 256GB of DDR3 RAM. The previous solution involved a custom CP Technologies 5U chassis in addition to a 2U external RAID array chassis. The customer desired to improve performance and, due to space constraints, fit the total solution into only 5U. CP Technologies provided a new custom chassis solution comprised of a rugged military-grade 5U enclosure. The system provides 20 front panel mounted 2-1/2” SSD drives in addition to 3 system drives mounted in the rear panel. All drives are mounted in removable sleds. A high-performance motherboard provides 2 PCIe x16 slots for mounting the two Tesla K40 GPU boards. Two Core i7 processors with 256GB of DDR3 RAM provide the required processing power. A 1500W N+1 redundant power supply provides reliable power. The system is highly ruggedized for its intended environment. It is constructed of 5052-H32 aircraft grade aluminum with captive stainless steel hardware and a milled aluminum front panel.