About This Project

As computational hardware becomes simultaneously more compact and less power hungry, it becomes possible to do more intense computation while away from the office/lab. We want to know if it is possible to make the Computational Research Lab mobile, and intend to prove that by building a computational cluster that could be easily transportable, able to function in a remote environment, and still perform the complex computational analyses usually done by servers in a data center.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Many scientists working on disease control, ecology and environmental studies need to do research in remote places. They often lack computing power to really analyze and look at the results that are collected in the field. This is especially important nowadays, when sophisticated computer programs really help advance research. While laptops can do some of it, they just don’t have enough power to handle the vast amount of data that is being generated. A satellite connection to more powerful computers is possible, but that only adds to the already high cost of field expedition. As a result, most researchers crunch the data after they get back, and any field scientists would tell you how annoying it is to find out that they are missing a piece of the data after the expedition is over.

What is the significance of this project?

Big data analysis has always been limited by access to powerful computers. While portable laptops can handle some of the load, you need powerful computing clusters to really crunch the numbers in hours, rather than days. Unfortunately, these are bulky (at least the size of a mini fridge), very expensive to set up (at least $10k) and often installed in air-conditioned locations with backup generators. We want to have the same computing power in roughly half the space, using much less power and cooling, and potentially transportable without special equipment. Our project would not only provide smaller groups (field expeditions) with high power computing, but also might influence the tech industry to further miniaturize computing. This could turn every portable computer into a mobile data center.

What are the goals of the project?

This project has two distinct parts: the first is to build a mobile computational cluster that can handle complex tasks while running on battery, which will be constructed using ordinary consumer parts. The second is to benchmark or test the system using computationally-intensive analyses that bioinformaticians run into on an everyday basis, such as sequence alignment to genomes to complement upcoming products like the MinION that will allow DNA/RNA sequencing in the field. We would also welcome the opportunity to test the systems based on suggestions from field researchers to demonstrate broad utility. Our end goal is to generate a prototype that is small enough to be portable, yet powerful and robust enough to perform multiple heavy computing tasks over the course of days (and weeks).