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CSE Lab: Facilities Overview |
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General Resources
The Department maintains a wide variety of state-of-the-art computing facilities for research and instructional use, housed in the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering, which features three times the laboratory space of the prior facility. The Computer Science Laboratory coordinates the acquisition, maintenance, and operation of the computing equipment and network services. General-purpose research computing is provided by over 700 Windows and Unix-based workstations and servers, located in laboratories, machine rooms and offices. These include approximately 650 Intel-based systems and several dozen Apple and Sun systems. Server infrastructure is comprised of general-purpose compute, file, web, mail and print servers, operating as a well-integrated Linux and Windows Server 2008 environment. Departmental networking utilizes switched gigabit Ethernet connections to servers and desktop machines, and a wireless network provides 802.11b/g connectivity throughout the entire building. Several large plasma screens provide high-definition video display for networking and graphics research and for video conferencing. Research ResourcesResearch in computer systems (including architecture, networking, and distributed systems) involves a wide and constantly updated variety of hardware, software, and networks. Current hardware includes high-performance Intel uniprocessor and SMP platforms, a 65-processor Intel cluster, a networking testbed cluster, and several Alpha, Sun, SGI and PC workstations. Our facilities include Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, and Alpha support, and our clusters enjoy gigabit switched Ethernet connectivity and an Abilene network feed. In addition, the Systems lab provides a common workspace for systems, networking, and architecture students, and features Windows workstations, a video projector, and floor-to-ceiling whiteboards. Research in VLSI, digital hardware, and embedded systems is supported by a set of PC and SPARC workstations and multiprocessor compute servers. A large collection of both commercial and university computer-aided design tools form the core of the design environment providing capabilities for the design of CMOS VLSI chips, FPGA and microprocessor-based systems, and printed-circuit boards. A variety of specialized equipment for the prototyping, debugging, and testing of microelectronic systems is also available and is housed within the Hardware and Embedded Systems Research Laboratory. These resources are utilized by research projects involved in the design of configurable computing architectures, devices to support ubiquitous and invisible computing, embedded systems, neurally-inspired computing and learning devices. Additional equipment and facilities are available in the W.T. Baxter Computer Engineering Laboratory, which is used for graduate and undergraduate courses including VLSI and embedded system design. 
Research in graphics, image processing, and user interfaces, centered in the Graphics and Imaging Laboratories, utilizes a set of high-end graphics workstations, a multiprocessor compute server, and a variety of special-purpose devices, including a real-time motion capture system, digital cameras (still and video), a computer-controlled lighting grid, a desktop Cyberware 3D laser scanner, video projectors for shape capture, and rotational and translational motion control platforms. Most of the lighting and imaging hardware resides in a special-purpose scanning and imaging laboratory, which is ideal for experiments that require controlled illumination. The motion capture system resides in a large studio with ample space to capture running, walking, and jumping motions. The main lab spaces contain an array of workstations and an audio/video hardware suite with non-linear digital video editing capabilities. The workstations in the main labs are also used as development stations for experimental teaching software in graphics and vision. 
Research in robotics is carried out in the Robotics and State Estimation Laboratory, which is equipped with several mobile robots, including one RWI B21r robot, three ActiveMedia Pioneer robots, nine ActiveMedia AmigoBots, and nine Sony AIBO robots. All robots utilize wireless networking to communicate with each other and the lab PCs running Linux. The B21 robot and all three Pioneer robots are equipped with SICK laser range-finders. Research in artificial intelligence, data mining, and satisfiability/experimental algorithms is supported by an intensive compute server, a Beowulf cluster composed of 37 dual processor nodes with gigabit Ethernet interconnect. All processors are high-end Pentium 4 Xeon processors, the total memory of the nodes is 216GB, and the cluster has a total of 9.6 TB of disk space. A second cluster consisting of 21 dual-processor nodes, with 84gb of memory and 5.3 TB of disk space supports AI research. Many other research groups utilize equipment located in a set of new research laboratories. Additional information can be found in the web pages for individual research projects, at /research/. Instructional Resources
Instructional computing is provided through laboratories operated within the department. These include three general use laboratories with over 90 Intel Pentium PCs running Windows XP and Linux. Additional back-end resources are provided by Intel PC-based compute and file servers running Linux, accessed through "WinTel" front ends using the X Window System. The department also operates four special-purpose laboratories
containing approximately 100 Intel Pentium PCs, each backed by
dedicated file servers. To support digital system design courses, the
Embedded Systems Laboratory contains 54 Pentium
workstations for design entry and simulation along with Tektronix
logic analyzers, digital oscilloscopes and other test equipment.
Remote AccessRemote access to the Department's computing facilities is available through private Internet service providers, through the University's dialup facilities, as well as from University computing labs. |
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Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA 98195-2350 (206) 543-1695 voice, (206) 543-2969 FAX [comments to webmaster] |
