Mini-ERA-HPVM: HPVM port of Mini-ERA

This is the HPVM port of the Mini-ERA workload.

Requirements

Mini-ERA-HPVM Requirements:

• HPVM (internal repository branch hpvm-epochs0 located here)
  • Refer to HPVM README for set up instructions. Note: During installation, make sure target is set to X86;RISCV to be able to target the EPOCHS-0 RISC-V processor.
• ApproxHPVM (internal repository branch approx_hpvm_nvdla located here.
  • Refer to ApproxHPVM README for set up instructions.
• GCC cross compiler for RISC-V, can be installed using ESP as follows:
  • Clone ESP repository using: git clone --recursive https://github.com/sld-columbia/esp.git
  • Checkout the epochs branch: cd esp && git checkout epochs
  • Invoke the cross-compiler installation script: ./utils/scripts/build_riscv_toolchain.sh

Note: A pre-built version of the ESP libraries is provided in this repository.

Installation and Execution

Checkout Mini-ERA repository

git clone https://github.com/IBM/mini-era.git
cd mini-era
git checkout hpvm

Setup required paths

In order to successfully build Mini-ERA, certain paths needs to set in the setup_paths.sh script. To do that, modify setup_paths.sh to include the correct paths for the following variabls:

• HPVM_DIR should point to the HPVM repo: $(PATH_TO_HPVM_REPO)/hpvm
• APPROXHPVM_DIR should point to the ApproxHPVM repo: $(PATH_TO_APPROXHPVM_REPO)
• RISCV_BIN_DIR should point to the bin folder for the cross-compiler: $(PATH_TO_RISCV_TOOLCHAIN_BINARIES)

Build

To build the HPVM version of Mini-ERA:

1. After modifying the setup script as described above, source it using source ./set_paths.sh
   • Note: The scripts must be sourced using source because it sets up environment variables that will be needed by the Makefiles.
2. Build for desired target:
   • For native architecture: make will generate the binary miniera-hpvm-seq
   • For epochs0 (risc-v host with fft, viterbi and NVLDA accelerators): make epochs will generate the binary miniera-hpvm-epochs
   • For all-software risc-v version: make riscv will generate the binary miniera-hpvm-riscv
3. To clean the build: make clean

Notes:

• When building riscv and epochs target, an ld error will appearing saying that the eh_table_hdr will not be created. This error can be ignored, the binary is still being generated.
• The build must be cleaned before invoking make with a different target!

Usage

./miniera-hpvm-* -h
Usage: ./miniera-hpvm-* <OPTIONS>
 OPTIONS:
    -h         : print this helpfule usage info
    -o         : print the Visualizer output traace information during the run
    -t <trace> : defines the input trace file to use
    -v <N>     : defines Viterbi messaging behavior:
               :      0 = One short message per time step
               :      1 = One long  message per time step
               :      2 = One short message per obstacle per time step
               :      3 = One long  message per obstacle per time step
               :      4 = One short msg per obstacle + 1 per time step
               :      5 = One long  msg per obstacle + 1 per time step

Execution (Example)

Trace-driven Mini-era requires the specification of the input trace (using -t <trace_file>) and also supports the specification of a message modeling behavior for the Viterbi kernel, using -v (where N is an integer). The corresponding behaviors are:

./main.exe -t <trace_name>     (e.g. traces/test_trace1.new)

By using the -v behavior controls, one can simulate the Viterbi messaging work that could load the system when either operating with a single global (environmental) messsage model, with a pure swarm collaboration model (where each other nearby vehicle sends a message) and in a hybrid that includes both kinds of messaging. The message length also allows one to consider the effect of larger and small message payload decoding on the overall Viterbi run-time impact.

More Information

For more information about the Mini-ERA application, please visit the main IBM-Resaerch repository for the project: https://github.com/IBM/mini-era.