Remote Sensing Information Sciences Research Group, Santa Barbara Information Sciences Research Group, year 3

Research continues to focus on improving the type, quantity, and quality of information which can be derived from remotely sensed data. The focus is on remote sensing and application for the Earth Observing System (Eos) and Space Station, including associated polar and co-orbiting platforms. The remote sensing research activities are being expanded, integrated, and extended into the areas of global science, georeferenced information systems, machine assissted information extraction from image data, and artificial intelligence. The accomplishments in these areas are examined

Identifying attack surfaces in the evolving space industry using reference architectures

The space environment is currently undergoing a substantial change and many new entrants to the market are deploying devices, satellites and systems in space; this evolution has been termed as NewSpace. The change is complicated by technological developments such as deploying machine learning based autonomous space systems and the Internet of Space Things (IoST). In the IoST, space systems will rely on satellite-to-x communication and interactions with wider aspects of the ground segment to a greater degree than existing systems. Such developments will inevitably lead to a change in the cyber security threat landscape of space systems. Inevitably, there will be a greater number of attack vectors for adversaries to exploit, and previously infeasible threats can be realised, and thus require mitigation. In this paper, we present a reference architecture (RA) that can be used to abstractly model in situ applications of this new space landscape. The RA specifies high-level system components and their interactions. By instantiating the RA for two scenarios we demonstrate how to analyse the attack surface using attack trees

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 1

The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. Topics addressed include: redundant manipulators; man-machine systems; telerobot architecture; remote sensing and planning; navigation; neural networks; fundamental AI research; and reasoning under uncertainty

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 2

These proceedings contain papers presented at the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics held in Pasadena, January 31 to February 2, 1989. The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The Conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for application of telerobotics technology to the space systems planned for the 1990s and beyond. The Conference: (1) provided a view of current NASA telerobotic research and development; (2) stimulated technical exchange on man-machine systems, manipulator control, machine sensing, machine intelligence, concurrent computation, and system architectures; and (3) identified important unsolved problems of current interest which can be dealt with by future research

Climate services for society: Institutional arrangements to support national agricultural climate services in Uruguay

This thesis advances our understanding of what it means to create climate services for society, with a particular focus on the institutional arrangements needed to support a national-level agricultural climate service in Uruguay. Grounded in a broad analysis of the emerging field of climate services, the thesis starts with a bird’s-eye-view approach, analyzing a global survey of more than 100 services to draw general conclusions about the current state of practice and the persistence of a number of common challenges. This activity is also used to define what might be considered a pattern of attributes that might define a “typical” climate service. While the analysis of this dataset is useful in providing a historical overview of the field in 2012, it was not able to provide a sense of good practice in this emerging field. To advance this discussion, the analysis finds that case studies must move past a simple accounting of what took place to explore and explain strengths and weaknesses of climate services from a more theoretical perspective. To achieve this, the thesis argues that case studies should explore currently under-researched issues, explaining causal links between specific climate-service interventions and ultimate outcomes. Case studies should also play a role in climate service evaluation, complementing experimental and quasi-experimental methods, and supplementing those methods in cases in which they may be inappropriate or premature. Building on these recommendations, the thesis develops a case study that follows an “archetypical” climate service, looking at the governance and institutional arrangements that support a national-level agricultural climate service based on seasonal-scale information and provided to the Uruguayan agricultural sector over the Internet. This work reveals six factors that created an enabling environment for investment in Uruguay’s National Agricultural Information System (SNIA). These are: institutional support for sustainable agriculture; groundwork on climate change adaptation; the modernisation of the meteorological service; an open data policy; a focus on the near-term; and the role of key individuals. In particular, the results reveal the role that “innovation systems,” “groundwork,” and the modernisation of the meteorological service play in fostering investment in climate services. This suggests a number of avenues by which national governments can advance investment in climate services, even when political factors make the possibility of this kind of investment seem remote. Policy measures – such as Uruguay’s requirement that all public data be made available, and the SNIA’s policy of focusing on near-term climate variability rather than long-term climate change – were critically important. Key individuals, and the relationships of trust between them, were also found to be central to the decision to invest in the SNIA. Following this analysis, a second component of the case study explored the governance arrangements that supported the development and use of SNIA. While this analysis found that the team responsible for the SNIA was relatively successful at developing ad hoc solutions to governance challenges associated with delivering the SNIA, it found as well that the team was less successful at addressing the governance challenges associated with defining the SNIA, including by selecting the information products that composed it, and ensuring the sustainable impact of the tool. As one of the first studies focused specifically on climate service governance, this analysis relied on themes from project governance. In extending these concepts, the thesis suggests that those concerned with the governance of national climate services should be particularly concerned with issues related to (1) prioritization among climate service opportunities, and between climate services and other types of) opportunities designed to further similar goals; (2) balancing needs and opportunities at local and national scales; (3) supporting evaluation; and (4) fostering sustainable impact. Taken together, the components of the thesis contribute to a larger discussion on the governance and institutional factors that contribute to the success of climate services, and to a better understanding of what determines “good practice” in climate services more broadly. The thesis also consolidates a range of social science literature that has expanded in the climate service field over the past decade and improves a general understanding of what climate services are, how they are funded, and how they are governed

Working Notes from the 1992 AAAI Spring Symposium on Practical Approaches to Scheduling and Planning

The symposium presented issues involved in the development of scheduling systems that can deal with resource and time limitations. To qualify, a system must be implemented and tested to some degree on non-trivial problems (ideally, on real-world problems). However, a system need not be fully deployed to qualify. Systems that schedule actions in terms of metric time constraints typically represent and reason about an external numeric clock or calendar and can be contrasted with those systems that represent time purely symbolically. The following topics are discussed: integrating planning and scheduling; integrating symbolic goals and numerical utilities; managing uncertainty; incremental rescheduling; managing limited computation time; anytime scheduling and planning algorithms, systems; dependency analysis and schedule reuse; management of schedule and plan execution; and incorporation of discrete event techniques

Third International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation for Space 1994

The Third International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation for Space (i-SAIRAS 94), held October 18-20, 1994, in Pasadena, California, was jointly sponsored by NASA, ESA, and Japan's National Space Development Agency, and was hosted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the California Institute of Technology. i-SAIRAS 94 featured presentations covering a variety of technical and programmatic topics, ranging from underlying basic technology to specific applications of artificial intelligence and robotics to space missions. i-SAIRAS 94 featured a special workshop on planning and scheduling and provided scientists, engineers, and managers with the opportunity to exchange theoretical ideas, practical results, and program plans in such areas as space mission control, space vehicle processing, data analysis, autonomous spacecraft, space robots and rovers, satellite servicing, and intelligent instruments

SSTAC/ARTS review of the draft Integrated Technology Plan (ITP). Volume 8: Aerothermodynamics Automation and Robotics (A/R) systems sensors, high-temperature superconductivity

Viewgraphs of briefings presented at the SSTAC/ARTS review of the draft Integrated Technology Plan (ITP) on aerothermodynamics, automation and robotics systems, sensors, and high-temperature superconductivity are included. Topics covered include: aerothermodynamics; aerobraking; aeroassist flight experiment; entry technology for probes and penetrators; automation and robotics; artificial intelligence; NASA telerobotics program; planetary rover program; science sensor technology; direct detector; submillimeter sensors; laser sensors; passive microwave sensing; active microwave sensing; sensor electronics; sensor optics; coolers and cryogenics; and high temperature superconductivity

Management: A bibliography for NASA managers

This bibliography lists 630 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System in 1991. Items are selected and grouped according to their usefulness to the manager as manager. Citations are grouped into ten subject categories: human factors and personnel issues; management theory and techniques; industrial management and manufacturing; robotics and expert systems; computers and information management; research and development; economics, costs and markets; logistics and operations management; reliability and quality control; and legality, legislation, and policy