This paper describes a new and different paradigm for real-time command and control that we show can provide a static, polynomial-time scheduling algorithm. Current efforts in real-time scheduling have been unable to predict system performance, and use a unpredictable "dynamic" scheduling algorithm. The Nation's Air Traffic Control (ATC) System has been unable to satisfy performance requirements, and is extremely expensive. An editorial in "USA Today" (419 -1999) cites expenditures in ATC at $41 billion. But, current multiprocessor technology cannot do the job.

The authors describe the range of hardware variations of array processors, a form of SIMD (simple instruction stream, multiple dates stream architecture), comparing and contrasting the significant differences among them and briefly illustrating the wide range of algorithms that can effectively utilize them. Three applications are reviewed. The first application, image convolution, represents the traditional numerically computationally intensive areas of application. SIMD array processors are sufficiently powerful to process digital imagery in real time easily. The second application, an example of real-time database management, is the air traffic control problem. The problem cannot be solved today by networks of computers that are successfully used in similar, less time-critical applications. With an array processor there is sufficient real time remaining after the present system tasks are accomplished to realize additional system enhancements. The third application area, graph algorithms, which is more theoretical, is representative of problems for which the simplicity of the array processor solution results in an execution time better than the best theoretical case for a conventional sequential implementation.>