Paper Session II-C - Introducing New Technologies Into Space Station Subsystems

In a cooperative effort between Kennedy Space Center, Stanford University and Lockheed Space Operations Company, a new systems engineering methodology has been developed and applied in the operational world of Shuttle processing. The new engineering approach stresses the importance of identifying, quantitatively assessing, and managing system performance and risk related to the dynamic nature of requirements, technology, and operational concepts. Under the cooperative program entitled, Space Systems Integration and Operations Research Applications (SIORA), the modernization of the processing operations for the Shuttle thermal protection system (IPS) or tiles became the first application of the engineering methodology. This effort adopted an approach consisting of an integrated set of rapid prototyping testbeds in which a government/ university/industry team of users, technologists, and engineers tested and evaluated new concepts and technologies within and in parallel to Shuttle processing operations. The integrated set of technologies introduced included speech recognition and synthesis capabilities, laser imaging inspection systems, distributed Ada programming environments, distributed relational database architectures, in addition to distributed computer network architectures, multi-media workbenches, expert system applications, probabilistic risk assessment modeling, and human factors considerations. The successful operational implementation of the integrated prototype, referred to as the Space Shuttle Tile Automation System, has validated the engineering methodology and strongly indicates that the same approach would be a viable systems engineering and project management tool for Freedom Space Station. This paper will address the lessons learned from the Shuttle processing experience and will present concepts which are applicable to the design and development of the Freedom Space Station

Technology Advances for Space Shuttle Processing

The Space Systems Integration and Operations Research Applications (SIORA) Program was initiated in late 1986 as a cooperative applications research effort between Stanford University, NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC), and Lockheed Space Operations Company (LSOC). One of the major initial SIORA tasks was the application of automation and robotics technology to all aspects of the Shuttle tile processing and inspection system. This effort has adopted a systems engineering approach consisting of an integrated set of rapid prototyping testbeds in which a government/university/industry team of users, technologists, and engineers test and evaluate new concepts and technologies within the operational world of Shuttle. These integrated testbeds include speech recognition and synthesis, LASER imaging systems, distributed Ada programming environments, distributed relational database architectures, distributed computer network architectures, multi-media workbenches, and human factors considerations

A synchronous cooperative architecture for the PROSOFT software engineering environment

This paper shows the evolution of a software engineering environment (SEE) called PROSOFT to support the formal development of groupware applications. This environment, which is centered in the data-driven approach for software development, evolved to support cooperation in the software development process. Its transition is founded in a client/server communication model called Distributed PROSOFT that provides software mechanisms to permit concurrent use of the environment resources. Thus, this paper presents a formal model that provides an object middleware with synchronous handling and version support for the objects created with the software tools integrated to the environment. Cooperative PROSOFT is presented as an architecture for the formal development of groupware applications that permits the formal validation of cooperative applications specified under its paradigm. A consequence of this work is the integration of the advantages found in formal specification techniques to the groupware development that provides the development of higher quality groupware applications than those obtained with the use of traditional techniques.Ingeniería de SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Consensus on Nonlinear Spaces

peer reviewedConsensus problems have attracted significant attention in the control community over the last decade. They act as a rich source of new mathematical problems pertaining to the growing field of cooperative and distributed control. This paper is an introduction to consensus problems whose underlying state-space is not a linear space, but instead a highly symmetric nonlinear space such as the circle and other relevant generalizations. A geometric approach is shown to highlight the connection between several fundamental models of consensus, synchronization, and coordination, to raise significant global convergence issues not present in linear models, and to be relevant for a number of engineering applications, including the design of planar or spatial coordinated motions

A synchronous cooperative architecture for the PROSOFT software engineering environment

This paper shows the evolution of a software engineering environment (SEE) called PROSOFT to support the formal development of groupware applications. This environment, which is centered in the data-driven approach for software development, evolved to support cooperation in the software development process. Its transition is founded in a client/server communication model called Distributed PROSOFT that provides software mechanisms to permit concurrent use of the environment resources. Thus, this paper presents a formal model that provides an object middleware with synchronous handling and version support for the objects created with the software tools integrated to the environment. Cooperative PROSOFT is presented as an architecture for the formal development of groupware applications that permits the formal validation of cooperative applications specified under its paradigm. A consequence of this work is the integration of the advantages found in formal specification techniques to the groupware development that provides the development of higher quality groupware applications than those obtained with the use of traditional techniques.Ingeniería de SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

A survey of agent-oriented methodologies

This article introduces the current agent-oriented methodologies. It discusses what approaches have been followed (mainly extending existing object oriented and knowledge engineering methodologies), the suitability of these approaches for agent modelling, and some conclusions drawn from the survey

Coordination approaches and systems - part I : a strategic perspective

This is the first part of a two-part paper presenting a fundamental review and summary of research of design coordination and cooperation technologies. The theme of this review is aimed at the research conducted within the decision management aspect of design coordination. The focus is therefore on the strategies involved in making decisions and how these strategies are used to satisfy design requirements. The paper reviews research within collaborative and coordinated design, project and workflow management, and, task and organization models. The research reviewed has attempted to identify fundamental coordination mechanisms from different domains, however it is concluded that domain independent mechanisms need to be augmented with domain specific mechanisms to facilitate coordination. Part II is a review of design coordination from an operational perspective

Bounded Distributed Flocking Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Robots

There have been numerous studies on the problem of flocking control for multiagent systems whose simplified models are presented in terms of point-mass elements. Meanwhile, full dynamic models pose some challenging problems in addressing the flocking control problem of mobile robots due to their nonholonomic dynamic properties. Taking practical constraints into consideration, we propose a novel approach to distributed flocking control of nonholonomic mobile robots by bounded feedback. The flocking control objectives consist of velocity consensus, collision avoidance, and cohesion maintenance among mobile robots. A flocking control protocol which is based on the information of neighbor mobile robots is constructed. The theoretical analysis is conducted with the help of a Lyapunov-like function and graph theory. Simulation results are shown to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed distributed flocking control scheme