Accelerating Missile Threat Simulations Using Personal Computer Graphics Cards

The authors use inexpensive personal computer graphics cards to perform the intensive image-processing computations done in a heat-seeking missile's tracking systems and thereby dramatically reduce the execution time of missile threat simulations used by military mission planners. Using an innovative processing algorithm, these calculations are accomplished up to 3.5 times faster in graphic cards versus using a conventional CPU. Through a combination of this and other software optimizations, simulation time was reduced by 33%.