NASA's swarm missions: the challenge of building autonomous software

Truszkowski, Walt; Hinchey, Mike; Rash, James L.; Rouff, Christopher

doi:10.1109/mitp.2004.66

Cited by 121 publications

(98 citation statements)

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“…In this short example, we use as a case study the prospective NASA's Autonomous Nano-Technology Swarm (ANTS) space exploration mission [6], which is a novel approach to asteroid-belt resource exploration (see Figure 1).…”

Section: Example Of Efficient Space Exploration Through Lazinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To explore a new asteroid, ANTS needs to form a team of spacecraft units called workers and carrying special instruments. A team is formed and coordinated by a special spacecraft unit called ruler [6]. Special messengers are needed to connect the team members when they cannot connect directly, due to long distances or a barrier.…”

Section: Fig 1 Ants Mission Concept [6]mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Efficient Space Exploration through Laziness

Vassev

Hinchey

2013

Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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Abstract. Autonomous behavior and onboard decision making is the backbone of robotic space exploration. The enormous distance and communication latency make such missions hardly controllable from Earth and external decision making may overlap and often contradict with the onboard decision making. We propose a behavior model based on some sort of "laziness" that helps spacecraft evaluate external instructions and eventually postpone their execution, or even discard some, when those are considered inappropriate by the internal spacecraft decision making.

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Section: Example Of Efficient Space Exploration Through Lazinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fig 1 Ants Mission Concept [6]mentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient Space Exploration through Laziness

Vassev

Hinchey

2013

Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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“…This novel approach to asteroid belt resource exploration (see Figure 2) requires significant autonomy, minimal communication with Earth, and a set of very small explorers with few consumables. 15 These explorers are pico-class, low-power, and low-weight spacecraft units, yet they can operate as fully autonomous and adaptable agents. Each spacecraft is equipped with a solar sail and relies primarily on power from the sun, using only tiny thrusters to navigate independently.…”

Section: Autonomous Nano Technology Swarmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Swarm Technology at NASA: Building Resilient Systems

et al. 2012

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Developing aerospace systems is a complex task driven by standards and safety requirements to ensure reliability of sophisticated hardware and software. NASA future missions include an approach to developing swarmbased spacecraft systems comprising multiple self-organizing and autonomous spacecraft.Deep space presents numerous hazards and harsh conditions for remote exploration missions, which must often operate autonomously without intervention from Earth. To increase the survivability of the remote missions, NASA is exploiting principles and techniques that help such systems become more resilient through self-management and automatic adaptation. By adhering to the principles of autonomic computing, 6-8 contemporary spacecraft systems implement vital features for unmanned missions, such as self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization, and self-protection.Moreover, biologically inspired approaches target new classes of space exploration missions that use swarm intelligence and swarm cooperation to achieve extremely robust systems. Swarm-based systems comprise thousands of small spacecraft working together to explore places in deep space where a single and monolith spacecraft is impractical.However, developing such systems-from conceptualization to validation-is a complex multidisciplinary activity, and reliability and safety are key objectives. The systems can't exhibit post-release faults or failures that could jeopardize the mission or cause loss of life. They integrate complex hardware and sophisticated software and thus require careful design and thorough testing to ensure adequate reliability. Moreover, aerospace systems have strict dependability and real-time requirements; need flexible resource reallocation; and must be limited in size, weight, and power consumption.System engineers thus must optimize their designs for three key factors: performance, reliability, and cost. As a result, the development process, characterized by numerous iterative design and analysis activities, is lengthy and costly. Moreover, for systems requiring certification prior to operation, the control software must go through rigorous verification and validation. Verification-Driven Software DevelopmentWhen developing software, it's important to choose a life-cycle process appropriate for the project at hand, because all other activities derive from that process. Aerospace systems must meet a variety of standards and adhere to high safety requirements, so the software development process for such systems should emphasize verification, validation, certification, and testing (see Figure 1) The process should also be technically adequate and cost effective for managing the safety requirements and design complexity and for certifying embedded system software. Most modern aerospace software development projects use some kind of spiral-based methodology over a waterfall process, because it better emphasizes verification. Emphasizing SafetyThe development process should help software developers specify the required level of safety...

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“…The authors of this paper have successfully used ASSL to design and implement autonomic features for part of NASA's ANTS (Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm) concept mission [17].…”

Section: Formalism For Autonomic Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamentals of Designing Complex Aerospace Software Systems

Vassev

Hinchey

2012

Complex Systems Design &Amp; Management

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Abstract. Contemporary aerospace systems are complex conglomerates of components where control software drives rigid hardware to aid such systems meet their standards and safety requirements. The design and development of such systems is an inherently complex task where complex hardware and sophisticated software must exhibit adequate reliability and thus, they need to be carefully designed and thoroughly checked and tested. We discuss some of the best practices in designing complex aerospace systems. Ideally, these practices might be used to form a design strategy directing designers and developers in finding the "right design concept" that can be applied to design a reliable aerospace system meeting important safety requirements. Moreover, the design aspects of a new class of aerospace systems termed "autonomic" is briefly discussed as well.

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NASA's swarm missions: the challenge of building autonomous software

Cited by 121 publications

References 0 publications

Efficient Space Exploration through Laziness

Efficient Space Exploration through Laziness

Swarm Technology at NASA: Building Resilient Systems

Fundamentals of Designing Complex Aerospace Software Systems

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