155 research outputs found
Engineering Resilient Space Systems
Several distinct trends will influence space exploration missions in the next decade. Destinations are
becoming more remote and mysterious, science questions more sophisticated, and, as mission experience
accumulates, the most accessible targets are visited, advancing the knowledge frontier to more difficult,
harsh, and inaccessible environments. This leads to new challenges including: hazardous conditions that
limit mission lifetime, such as high radiation levels surrounding interesting destinations like Europa or
toxic atmospheres of planetary bodies like Venus; unconstrained environments with navigation hazards,
such as free-floating active small bodies; multielement missions required to answer more sophisticated
questions, such as Mars Sample Return (MSR); and long-range missions, such as Kuiper belt exploration,
that must survive equipment failures over the span of decades. These missions will need to be successful
without a priori knowledge of the most efficient data collection techniques for optimum science return.
Science objectives will have to be revised ‘on the fly’, with new data collection and navigation decisions
on short timescales.
Yet, even as science objectives are becoming more ambitious, several critical resources remain
unchanged. Since physics imposes insurmountable light-time delays, anticipated improvements to the
Deep Space Network (DSN) will only marginally improve the bandwidth and communications cadence to
remote spacecraft. Fiscal resources are increasingly limited, resulting in fewer flagship missions, smaller
spacecraft, and less subsystem redundancy. As missions visit more distant and formidable locations, the
job of the operations team becomes more challenging, seemingly inconsistent with the trend of shrinking
mission budgets for operations support. How can we continue to explore challenging new locations
without increasing risk or system complexity?
These challenges are present, to some degree, for the entire Decadal Survey mission portfolio, as
documented in Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013–2022 (National Research
Council, 2011), but are especially acute for the following mission examples, identified in our recently
completed KISS Engineering Resilient Space Systems (ERSS) study:
1. A Venus lander, designed to sample the atmosphere and surface of Venus, would have to perform
science operations as components and subsystems degrade and fail;
2. A Trojan asteroid tour spacecraft would spend significant time cruising to its ultimate destination
(essentially hibernating to save on operations costs), then upon arrival, would have to act as its
own surveyor, finding new objects and targets of opportunity as it approaches each asteroid,
requiring response on short notice; and
3. A MSR campaign would not only be required to perform fast reconnaissance over long distances
on the surface of Mars, interact with an unknown physical surface, and handle degradations and
faults, but would also contain multiple components (launch vehicle, cruise stage, entry and
landing vehicle, surface rover, ascent vehicle, orbiting cache, and Earth return vehicle) that
dramatically increase the need for resilience to failure across the complex system.
The concept of resilience and its relevance and application in various domains was a focus during the
study, with several definitions of resilience proposed and discussed. While there was substantial variation
in the specifics, there was a common conceptual core that emerged—adaptation in the presence of
changing circumstances. These changes were couched in various ways—anomalies, disruptions,
discoveries—but they all ultimately had to do with changes in underlying assumptions. Invalid
assumptions, whether due to unexpected changes in the environment, or an inadequate understanding of
interactions within the system, may cause unexpected or unintended system behavior. A system is
resilient if it continues to perform the intended functions in the presence of invalid assumptions.
Our study focused on areas of resilience that we felt needed additional exploration and integration,
namely system and software architectures and capabilities, and autonomy technologies. (While also an
important consideration, resilience in hardware is being addressed in multiple other venues, including
2
other KISS studies.) The study consisted of two workshops, separated by a seven-month focused study
period. The first workshop (Workshop #1) explored the ‘problem space’ as an organizing theme, and the
second workshop (Workshop #2) explored the ‘solution space’. In each workshop, focused discussions
and exercises were interspersed with presentations from participants and invited speakers.
The study period between the two workshops was organized as part of the synthesis activity during the
first workshop. The study participants, after spending the initial days of the first workshop discussing the
nature of resilience and its impact on future science missions, decided to split into three focus groups,
each with a particular thrust, to explore specific ideas further and develop material needed for the second
workshop. The three focus groups and areas of exploration were:
1. Reference missions: address/refine the resilience needs by exploring a set of reference missions
2. Capability survey: collect, document, and assess current efforts to develop capabilities and
technology that could be used to address the documented needs, both inside and outside NASA
3. Architecture: analyze the impact of architecture on system resilience, and provide principles and
guidance for architecting greater resilience in our future systems
The key product of the second workshop was a set of capability roadmaps pertaining to the three
reference missions selected for their representative coverage of the types of space missions envisioned for
the future. From these three roadmaps, we have extracted several common capability patterns that would
be appropriate targets for near-term technical development: one focused on graceful degradation of
system functionality, a second focused on data understanding for science and engineering applications,
and a third focused on hazard avoidance and environmental uncertainty. Continuing work is extending
these roadmaps to identify candidate enablers of the capabilities from the following three categories:
architecture solutions, technology solutions, and process solutions.
The KISS study allowed a collection of diverse and engaged engineers, researchers, and scientists to think
deeply about the theory, approaches, and technical issues involved in developing and applying resilience
capabilities. The conclusions summarize the varied and disparate discussions that occurred during the
study, and include new insights about the nature of the challenge and potential solutions:
1. There is a clear and definitive need for more resilient space systems. During our study period,
the key scientists/engineers we engaged to understand potential future missions confirmed the
scientific and risk reduction value of greater resilience in the systems used to perform these
missions.
2. Resilience can be quantified in measurable terms—project cost, mission risk, and quality of
science return. In order to consider resilience properly in the set of engineering trades performed
during the design, integration, and operation of space systems, the benefits and costs of resilience
need to be quantified. We believe, based on the work done during the study, that appropriate
metrics to measure resilience must relate to risk, cost, and science quality/opportunity. Additional
work is required to explicitly tie design decisions to these first-order concerns.
3. There are many existing basic technologies that can be applied to engineering resilient space
systems. Through the discussions during the study, we found many varied approaches and
research that address the various facets of resilience, some within NASA, and many more
beyond. Examples from civil architecture, Department of Defense (DoD) / Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiatives, ‘smart’ power grid control, cyber-physical
systems, software architecture, and application of formal verification methods for software were
identified and discussed. The variety and scope of related efforts is encouraging and presents
many opportunities for collaboration and development, and we expect many collaborative
proposals and joint research as a result of the study.
4. Use of principled architectural approaches is key to managing complexity and integrating
disparate technologies. The main challenge inherent in considering highly resilient space
systems is that the increase in capability can result in an increase in complexity with all of the
3
risks and costs associated with more complex systems. What is needed is a better way of
conceiving space systems that enables incorporation of capabilities without increasing
complexity. We believe principled architecting approaches provide the needed means to convey a
unified understanding of the system to primary stakeholders, thereby controlling complexity in
the conception and development of resilient systems, and enabling the integration of disparate
approaches and technologies. A representative architectural example is included in Appendix F.
5. Developing trusted resilience capabilities will require a diverse yet strategically directed
research program. Despite the interest in, and benefits of, deploying resilience space systems, to
date, there has been a notable lack of meaningful demonstrated progress in systems capable of
working in hazardous uncertain situations. The roadmaps completed during the study, and
documented in this report, provide the basis for a real funded plan that considers the required
fundamental work and evolution of needed capabilities.
Exploring space is a challenging and difficult endeavor. Future space missions will require more
resilience in order to perform the desired science in new environments under constraints of development
and operations cost, acceptable risk, and communications delays. Development of space systems with
resilient capabilities has the potential to expand the limits of possibility, revolutionizing space science by
enabling as yet unforeseen missions and breakthrough science observations.
Our KISS study provided an essential venue for the consideration of these challenges and goals.
Additional work and future steps are needed to realize the potential of resilient systems—this study
provided the necessary catalyst to begin this process
Engineering Resilient Space Systems
Several distinct trends will influence space exploration missions in the next decade. Destinations are
becoming more remote and mysterious, science questions more sophisticated, and, as mission experience
accumulates, the most accessible targets are visited, advancing the knowledge frontier to more difficult,
harsh, and inaccessible environments. This leads to new challenges including: hazardous conditions that
limit mission lifetime, such as high radiation levels surrounding interesting destinations like Europa or
toxic atmospheres of planetary bodies like Venus; unconstrained environments with navigation hazards,
such as free-floating active small bodies; multielement missions required to answer more sophisticated
questions, such as Mars Sample Return (MSR); and long-range missions, such as Kuiper belt exploration,
that must survive equipment failures over the span of decades. These missions will need to be successful
without a priori knowledge of the most efficient data collection techniques for optimum science return.
Science objectives will have to be revised ‘on the fly’, with new data collection and navigation decisions
on short timescales.
Yet, even as science objectives are becoming more ambitious, several critical resources remain
unchanged. Since physics imposes insurmountable light-time delays, anticipated improvements to the
Deep Space Network (DSN) will only marginally improve the bandwidth and communications cadence to
remote spacecraft. Fiscal resources are increasingly limited, resulting in fewer flagship missions, smaller
spacecraft, and less subsystem redundancy. As missions visit more distant and formidable locations, the
job of the operations team becomes more challenging, seemingly inconsistent with the trend of shrinking
mission budgets for operations support. How can we continue to explore challenging new locations
without increasing risk or system complexity?
These challenges are present, to some degree, for the entire Decadal Survey mission portfolio, as
documented in Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013–2022 (National Research
Council, 2011), but are especially acute for the following mission examples, identified in our recently
completed KISS Engineering Resilient Space Systems (ERSS) study:
1. A Venus lander, designed to sample the atmosphere and surface of Venus, would have to perform
science operations as components and subsystems degrade and fail;
2. A Trojan asteroid tour spacecraft would spend significant time cruising to its ultimate destination
(essentially hibernating to save on operations costs), then upon arrival, would have to act as its
own surveyor, finding new objects and targets of opportunity as it approaches each asteroid,
requiring response on short notice; and
3. A MSR campaign would not only be required to perform fast reconnaissance over long distances
on the surface of Mars, interact with an unknown physical surface, and handle degradations and
faults, but would also contain multiple components (launch vehicle, cruise stage, entry and
landing vehicle, surface rover, ascent vehicle, orbiting cache, and Earth return vehicle) that
dramatically increase the need for resilience to failure across the complex system.
The concept of resilience and its relevance and application in various domains was a focus during the
study, with several definitions of resilience proposed and discussed. While there was substantial variation
in the specifics, there was a common conceptual core that emerged—adaptation in the presence of
changing circumstances. These changes were couched in various ways—anomalies, disruptions,
discoveries—but they all ultimately had to do with changes in underlying assumptions. Invalid
assumptions, whether due to unexpected changes in the environment, or an inadequate understanding of
interactions within the system, may cause unexpected or unintended system behavior. A system is
resilient if it continues to perform the intended functions in the presence of invalid assumptions.
Our study focused on areas of resilience that we felt needed additional exploration and integration,
namely system and software architectures and capabilities, and autonomy technologies. (While also an
important consideration, resilience in hardware is being addressed in multiple other venues, including
2
other KISS studies.) The study consisted of two workshops, separated by a seven-month focused study
period. The first workshop (Workshop #1) explored the ‘problem space’ as an organizing theme, and the
second workshop (Workshop #2) explored the ‘solution space’. In each workshop, focused discussions
and exercises were interspersed with presentations from participants and invited speakers.
The study period between the two workshops was organized as part of the synthesis activity during the
first workshop. The study participants, after spending the initial days of the first workshop discussing the
nature of resilience and its impact on future science missions, decided to split into three focus groups,
each with a particular thrust, to explore specific ideas further and develop material needed for the second
workshop. The three focus groups and areas of exploration were:
1. Reference missions: address/refine the resilience needs by exploring a set of reference missions
2. Capability survey: collect, document, and assess current efforts to develop capabilities and
technology that could be used to address the documented needs, both inside and outside NASA
3. Architecture: analyze the impact of architecture on system resilience, and provide principles and
guidance for architecting greater resilience in our future systems
The key product of the second workshop was a set of capability roadmaps pertaining to the three
reference missions selected for their representative coverage of the types of space missions envisioned for
the future. From these three roadmaps, we have extracted several common capability patterns that would
be appropriate targets for near-term technical development: one focused on graceful degradation of
system functionality, a second focused on data understanding for science and engineering applications,
and a third focused on hazard avoidance and environmental uncertainty. Continuing work is extending
these roadmaps to identify candidate enablers of the capabilities from the following three categories:
architecture solutions, technology solutions, and process solutions.
The KISS study allowed a collection of diverse and engaged engineers, researchers, and scientists to think
deeply about the theory, approaches, and technical issues involved in developing and applying resilience
capabilities. The conclusions summarize the varied and disparate discussions that occurred during the
study, and include new insights about the nature of the challenge and potential solutions:
1. There is a clear and definitive need for more resilient space systems. During our study period,
the key scientists/engineers we engaged to understand potential future missions confirmed the
scientific and risk reduction value of greater resilience in the systems used to perform these
missions.
2. Resilience can be quantified in measurable terms—project cost, mission risk, and quality of
science return. In order to consider resilience properly in the set of engineering trades performed
during the design, integration, and operation of space systems, the benefits and costs of resilience
need to be quantified. We believe, based on the work done during the study, that appropriate
metrics to measure resilience must relate to risk, cost, and science quality/opportunity. Additional
work is required to explicitly tie design decisions to these first-order concerns.
3. There are many existing basic technologies that can be applied to engineering resilient space
systems. Through the discussions during the study, we found many varied approaches and
research that address the various facets of resilience, some within NASA, and many more
beyond. Examples from civil architecture, Department of Defense (DoD) / Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiatives, ‘smart’ power grid control, cyber-physical
systems, software architecture, and application of formal verification methods for software were
identified and discussed. The variety and scope of related efforts is encouraging and presents
many opportunities for collaboration and development, and we expect many collaborative
proposals and joint research as a result of the study.
4. Use of principled architectural approaches is key to managing complexity and integrating
disparate technologies. The main challenge inherent in considering highly resilient space
systems is that the increase in capability can result in an increase in complexity with all of the
3
risks and costs associated with more complex systems. What is needed is a better way of
conceiving space systems that enables incorporation of capabilities without increasing
complexity. We believe principled architecting approaches provide the needed means to convey a
unified understanding of the system to primary stakeholders, thereby controlling complexity in
the conception and development of resilient systems, and enabling the integration of disparate
approaches and technologies. A representative architectural example is included in Appendix F.
5. Developing trusted resilience capabilities will require a diverse yet strategically directed
research program. Despite the interest in, and benefits of, deploying resilience space systems, to
date, there has been a notable lack of meaningful demonstrated progress in systems capable of
working in hazardous uncertain situations. The roadmaps completed during the study, and
documented in this report, provide the basis for a real funded plan that considers the required
fundamental work and evolution of needed capabilities.
Exploring space is a challenging and difficult endeavor. Future space missions will require more
resilience in order to perform the desired science in new environments under constraints of development
and operations cost, acceptable risk, and communications delays. Development of space systems with
resilient capabilities has the potential to expand the limits of possibility, revolutionizing space science by
enabling as yet unforeseen missions and breakthrough science observations.
Our KISS study provided an essential venue for the consideration of these challenges and goals.
Additional work and future steps are needed to realize the potential of resilient systems—this study
provided the necessary catalyst to begin this process
Emerging research directions in computer science : contributions from the young informatics faculty in Karlsruhe
In order to build better human-friendly human-computer interfaces,
such interfaces need to be enabled with capabilities to perceive
the user, his location, identity, activities and in particular his interaction
with others and the machine. Only with these perception capabilities
can smart systems ( for example human-friendly robots or smart environments) become posssible. In my research I\u27m thus focusing on the
development of novel techniques for the visual perception of humans and
their activities, in order to facilitate perceptive multimodal interfaces,
humanoid robots and smart environments. My work includes research
on person tracking, person identication, recognition of pointing gestures,
estimation of head orientation and focus of attention, as well as
audio-visual scene and activity analysis. Application areas are humanfriendly
humanoid robots, smart environments, content-based image and
video analysis, as well as safety- and security-related applications. This
article gives a brief overview of my ongoing research activities in these
areas
Flight Avionics Hardware Roadmap
As part of NASA's Avionics Steering Committee's stated goal to advance the avionics discipline ahead of program and project needs, the committee initiated a multi-Center technology roadmapping activity to create a comprehensive avionics roadmap. The roadmap is intended to strategically guide avionics technology development to effectively meet future NASA missions needs. The scope of the roadmap aligns with the twelve avionics elements defined in the ASC charter, but is subdivided into the following five areas: Foundational Technology (including devices and components), Command and Data Handling, Spaceflight Instrumentation, Communication and Tracking, and Human Interfaces
A Model of Emotion as Patterned Metacontrol
Adaptive agents use feedback as a key strategy to cope with un- certainty and change in their environments. The information fed back from the sensorimotor loop into the control subsystem can be used to change four different elements of the controller: parameters associated to the control model, the control model itself, the functional organization of the agent and the functional realization of the agent. There are many change alternatives and hence the complexity of the agent’s space of potential configurations is daunting. The only viable alternative for space- and time-constrained agents —in practical, economical, evolutionary terms— is to achieve a reduction of the dimensionality of this configuration space. Emotions play a critical role in this reduction. The reduction is achieved by func- tionalization, interface minimization and by patterning, i.e. by selection among a predefined set of organizational configurations. This analysis lets us state how autonomy emerges from the integration of cognitive, emotional and autonomic systems in strict functional terms: autonomy is achieved by the closure of functional dependency. Emotion-based morphofunctional systems are able to exhibit complex adaptation patterns at a reduced cognitive cost. In this article we show a general model of how emotion supports functional adaptation and how the emotional biological systems operate following this theoretical model. We will also show how this model is also of applicability to the construction of a wide spectrum of artificial systems1
Design and management of image processing pipelines within CPS : Acquired experience towards the end of the FitOptiVis ECSEL Project
Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are dynamic and reactive systems interacting with processes, environment and, sometimes, humans. They are often distributed with sensors and actuators, characterized for being smart, adaptive, predictive and react in real-time. Indeed, image- and video-processing pipelines are a prime source for environmental information for systems allowing them to take better decisions according to what they see. Therefore, in FitOptiVis, we are developing novel methods and tools to integrate complex image- and video-processing pipelines. FitOptiVis aims to deliver a reference architecture for describing and optimizing quality and resource management for imaging and video pipelines in CPSs both at design- and run-time. The architecture is concretized in low-power, high-performance, smart components, and in methods and tools for combined design-time and run-time multi-objective optimization and adaptation within system and environment constraints.Peer reviewe
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