Possible Co-op Opportunities in Charlottesville for 2008

1 - NRAO Technology Center
Java GUI diagnostic tool application which investigates potential hardware faults by drilling down into the hardware via serial-bus interfaces to identify specific faulty components. This application would be used by experienced hardware engineers and observatory operators to monitor and resolve faulty hardware. This project requires knowledge of Java and experience writing GUIs.
Engineering advisor : Jim Pisano

2 - NRAO Technology Center
Create a suite of real-time diagnostic tools for our real-time Linux applications. Our software consists of sophisticated and complex real-time modules which are difficult to debug due to lack of third-party tools and the real-time demands of external data inputs and high data processing rates. This project requires knowledge of real-time programming Linux kernel modules, and debugging tools like gdb.
Engineering advisor : Jim Pisano

3 - NRAO Technology Center
Computer cluster management. We have a specialized computer cluster to process real-time data from the ALMA correlator, a high-speed, high-data rate digital signal processor. The cluster is similar to a Beowulf cluster whose computers need a suite of management tools to monitor their status, deal with computer failures, remote booting and operation, etc. We have individual tools to perform these functions, but they need to be organized into a coherent set of administrative tools with ample documentation and procedures. As we will be deploying the initial phases of our system at year's end in Chile (where the observatory is located), this important bit of development is needed.
Engineering advisor : Jim Pisano

Further information about the NRAO co-op program can be obtained by contacting:

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.