Monthly Archive for July, 2009

Nuclear Submarine for Dummies

I am not much of a technical guy but I am trying to write this guide for dummies.

If you like it the do comment

What is a nuclear submarine?

A nuclear Submarine is a submarine which uses nuclear material to generate power for propulsion rather than conventional resources like diesel and Fuel cells

wiki

A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by nuclear reactor technology, as opposed to a more conventional submarine layout consisting of air-breathing diesel engines which are used to charge batteries for underwater running. The performance advantages of nuclear submarines over conventional submarines are large; nuclear propulsion, being completely independent of air, frees the submarine from the need to frequently surface, as is necessary for conventional submarines; the large amounts of power generated by a nuclear reactor allow nuclear submarines to operate at high speed for long durations; and the long interval between refuellings grant a range limited only by consumables such as food – current generations of nuclear submarines never need to be refueled throughout their 25-year lifespans. Conversely, the limited power stored in electric batteries means that even the most advanced conventional submarine can only remain submerged for a few days at slow speed, and only a few hours at top speed; recent advances in Air-independent propulsion have eroded this disadvantage somewhat. The high cost of nuclear technology means that relatively few states have fielded nuclear submarines.

Okay so how is this better than others?

1.A nuclear Submarine can stay under water for months at time .

2.It is very quite as it does not have a engine to generate power but a nuclear reactor which reduces the noise and hence remains undetectable to enemy sonar

3.Due to its ability to stay under water for long time they avoid getting tracked by satellites when they make perth.

Cool …so what is the big fuss in making them ?

Making a Nuclear submarine is not easy.This is because you need to miniaturize a nuclear power reactor.

What is a nuclear power reactor ?

Flow diagram of a Nuclear reactor

Looks simple but on a realistic scale

it looks like this.

Nuclear power plant

Not so easy now huh!

Now we have to miniaturize a nuclear power plant to the size of a 100sq.meter, with all the safety features intact.

The electricity generated from this nuclear reactor is fed to the propeller and the propeller propels the submarine.

So India has made one Huh!

Well yes, Indian has made one and it is named as INS ARIHANT (Destroyer of the enemies)

Is it operational yet?

No not yet.

As this one is the first one made by India till now it will undergo rigorous testing by the navy before it is inducted

So just one?

NO there are two more being made and one being leased from Russia for 10year.

That makes a total of 5?

Yes

Schematics

Indian processors

After facing a lot of hack attempts from Chinese hackers on a daily basis

GOI has decided to make its own processors to add as measure to prevent Chinese hackers from infiltrating into crucial websites

Top scientists at some of the country’s ace scientific institutions are pooling energies, and the government some money, in an attempt to design a home-grown microprocessor, which they hope will ward off the rising threat of espionage into strategic segments like defence, telecom and space.

However, the current plan has national security as the first priority, especially after reports of a global network of Chinese hackers breaking into sensitive installations worldwide, including the headquarters of Dalai Lama in Dharamshala and telecom networks in the UK. Just a week ago, South Korea had complained of an organised effort by North Korea to hack its government network.

“Unless India has its own microprocessor, we can never ensure that networks (that require microprocessors) such as telecom, Army WAN, and microprocessors used in BARC, ISRO, in aircraft such as Tejas, battle tanks and radars are not compromised,” the document points out.Source

For those who do not know GOI has quite some experience in developing semiconductors

Advanced Neumarical Research and Analysis Group (ANURAG)

Advanced Numerical Research and Analysis Group (ANURAG) is a laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Located in Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad, it is involved in the development of computing solutions for numerical analysis and their use in other DRDO projects.ANURAG was established on May 2, 1988, to support aeronautical design work, with the mandate of executing specific, time-bound projects leading to the development of custom designed computing systems and software packages for numerical analysis and other applications.

Microprocessor Design and Development.

ANURAG has designed and developed general-purpose microprocessors- ANUPAMA and ABACUS. ANUPAMA is a 32-bit RISC processor, and works at 33 MHz clock speed. The complete software development tool kit is available for application development. A single-board computer based on ANUPAMA is available for evaluation and software development. ANUPAMA is also available as an IP core.

ABACUS is a 32-bit processor for multi-tasking applications with virtual memory support. It is designed around ANUPAMA core with additions like MMU, two levels of cache, double precision FPU, SDRAM controller. The IP core of ABACUS is available in Verilog RTL code. This processor is suited for desktop applications. Complete software platform is available for ABACUS processor and a single board computer with ABACUS is implemented. Linux Kernel is ported.

Areas of work

ANURAG helps design and develop advanced computing systems. Much of this research is conducted in state-of-the art concepts like parallel architectures, etc, in order to build up a technology base in these areas. Its areas of work are:

1. Parallel processing technology.
2. System engineering, integration.
3. General purpose microprocessors.
4. 1 micrometre CMOS fabrication technology.
5. Design and development of VLSI chips & SOC development.
6. Processor related technology.
7. System software development for custom made processors

Products

PACE (Processor for Aerodynamic Computations and Evaluation), developed by ANURAG, is a loosely coupled, message-passing parallel processing supercomputer. PACE was originally designed to cater to the Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) needs in aircraft design. It can also be used for other fields such as weather forecasting, automobile & civil engineering design and Molecular Biology. These systems have been built using VME-bus based Pentium processor boards, ATM switches and Reflective Memory communication hardware.

In 1987, India decided to launch a national initiative in supercomputing to design, develop and deliver a supercomputer in the gigaflops range. Complementary projects were initiated in various labs, ANURAG being one of them. PACE was unveiled by then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in April 1995.

In late 1998, ANURAG developed the 15 times more powerful “Pace Plus 32″, which can be used to support missile development, as well as other fields. A 128-node PACE++ system, built using Pentium processor based VME boards was unveiled by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in January 2004. The performance of this system is 50 Gigaflops (sustained performance). It has been installed at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. At present work is in progress on parallel processing system based on Linux clusters targeted to deliver 1 teraflop performance.

ANAMICA
ANAMICA (ANURAG’s Medical Imaging and Characterization Aid) is a DICOM compliant three-dimensional medical visualization software for data obtained from any medical imaging system like MRI, CT and Ultrasound. The software has two-dimensional and three-dimensional visualisation techniques to visualize the images in various ways. The sequence of images obtained from any imaging system by scanning of a single patient is packed to form a three-dimensional grid. The software has also been modified for accepting data from Industrial CT systems.

General purpose microprocessors

ANURAG has designed and developed general-purpose microprocessors- ANUPAMA and ABACUS. ANUPAMA is a 32-bit RISC processor, and works at 33 MHz clock speed. The complete software development tool kit is available for application development. A single-board computer based on ANUPAMA is available for evaluation and software development. ANUPAMA is also available as an IP core.

ABACUS is a 32-bit processor for multi-tasking applications with virtual memory support. It is designed around ANUPAMA core with additions like MMU, two levels of cache, double precision FPU, SDRAM controller. The IP core of ABACUS is available in Verilog RTL code. This processor is suited for desktop applications. Complete software platform is available for ABACUS processor and a single board computer with ABACUS is implemented. Linux Kernel is ported.

Other technologies

ANURAG has designed a 16-bit DSP processor, which is available as an IP core and the design is packaged in 120-pin CPGA. It has also designed other processors and arithmetic cores. ANURAG has also been able to fabricate CMOS designs up to 1 micrometre size and with up to 100,000 gates. Die sizes of 14 x 14 mm have been achieved.

Not only will this help sensitive networks safe against Chinese hackers but it will also help the ailing Semiconductor industry to get back on its feet

Its not that the Chinese hackers have only targeted the Indians,they have targeted the Russians

Americans, British & even the Turkish.

So how exactly will making a chip prevent chinese hackers from hacking Indian websites?

I really don’t know I will read more stuff about it and let you know

The Indian Hummer

Mahindra & Mahindra is devoloping a High Mobility MultiPurpose Wheeled Vehicle for the Indian Army

What is a High Mobility MultiPurpose Wheeled Vehicle you ask?

An example of a High Mobility MultiPurpose Wheeled Vehicle is a hummer used by the American Army.

: The American Hummer

The Indian Army has recently realized the need for a Humvee and decided to raise a tender to give private companies in India a boost.

Among th Bidders was our very own Mahindra and Mahindra with their version of the Hummve called the Mahindra AXE

A few pics of it

: The open version of the Indian hmmer

The Specs are sketchy but they are as follows

Specifications
Weight	2,500 kg curb weight
Length	4.4 m
Width	1.96 m
Height	1.98 m

Engine	5 cyl Diesel
Transmission	Automatic
Suspension	Independent
Ground clearance	3.5 m
Fuel capacity	100 L

Just for comaprison the spec of the American Humvee

Specifications
Weight	5,200 lb (2,340kg)—5,900 lb (2,680 kg) curb weight^[1]
Length	15 ft (4.6 m)^[2]
Width	7.08 ft (2.1 m)^[2]
Height	6 ft (1.8 m), reducible to 4.5 ft (1.4 m)^[2]

Engine	8 Cyl. Diesel 6.2 L (~378 cu in) or 6.5 L (~397 cu in)^[1]
Suspension	Independent
Fuel capacity	25 U.S. gal (95 L)^[2]
Speed	90 mph(144 km/h)(unarmored)-65 mph (105 km/h)(armored) maximum [3]