CHAD R. FROST
NASA Ames Research Center
With the launch of Deep Space 1 in 1998, the autonomous systems community celebrated a milestone—the first flight experiment demonstrating the feasibility of a fully autonomous spacecraft. We anticipated that the advanced autonomy demonstrated on Deep Space 1 would soon be pervasive, enabling science missions, making spacecraft more resilient, and reducing operational costs.
However, the pace of adoption has been relatively slow. When autonomous systems have been used, either operationally or as an experiment or demonstration, they have been successful. In addition, outstanding work by the autonomous-systems community has continued to advance the technologies of autonomous systems (Castaño et al., 2006; Chien et al., 2005; Estlin et al., 2008; Fong et al., 2008; Knight, 2008).
There are many reasons for putting autonomous systems on board spacecraft. These include maintenance of the spacecraft despite failures or damage, extension of the science team through “virtual presence,” and cost-effective operation over long periods of time. Why, then, has the goal of autonomy not been more broadly adopted?
First, we should clarify the difference between autonomy and automation. Many definitions are possible (e.g., Doyle, 2002), but here we focus on the need to make choices, a common requirement for systems outside our direct, hands-on control.
An automated system doesn’t make choices for itself—it follows a script, albeit a potentially sophisticated script, in which all possible courses of action
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 89
Challenges and Opportunities
for Autonomous Systems in Space
ChAd R. FRoSt
NASA Ames Research Center
With the launch of Deep Space 1 in 1998, the autonomous systems com-
munity celebrated a milestone—the first flight experiment demonstrating the
feasibility of a fully autonomous spacecraft. We anticipated that the advanced
autonomy demonstrated on Deep Space 1 would soon be pervasive, enabling sci-
ence missions, making spacecraft more resilient, and reducing operational costs.
However, the pace of adoption has been relatively slow. When autonomous
systems have been used, either operationally or as an experiment or demonstra-
tion, they have been successful. In addition, outstanding work by the autonomous-
systems community has continued to advance the technologies of autonomous
systems (Castaño et al., 2006; Chien et al., 2005; Estlin et al., 2008; Fong et al.,
2008; knight, 2008).
There are many reasons for putting autonomous systems on board spacecraft.
These include maintenance of the spacecraft despite failures or damage, exten -
sion of the science team through “virtual presence,” and cost-effective operation
over long periods of time. Why, then, has the goal of autonomy not been more
broadly adopted?
DEFINITION OF AUTONOMY
First, we should clarify the difference between autonomy and automation.
Many definitions are possible (e.g., Doyle, 2002), but here we focus on the need
to make choices, a common requirement for systems outside our direct, hands-on
control.
An automated system doesn’t make choices for itself—it follows a script,
albeit a potentially sophisticated script, in which all possible courses of action
OCR for page 89
0 FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
have already been made. If the system encounters an unplanned-for situation, it
stops and waits for human help (e.g. it “phones home”). Thus, for an automated
system choices have either already been made and encoded, or they must be made
externally.
By contrast, an autonomous system does make choices on its own. It tries to
accomplish its objectives locally, without human intervention, even when encoun-
tering uncertainty or unanticipated events.
An intelligent autonomous system makes choices using more sophisticated
mechanisms than other systems. These mechanisms often resemble those used by
humans. Ultimately, the level of intelligence of an autonomous system is judged
by the quality of the choices it makes. Regardless of the implementation details,
however, intelligent autonomous systems are capable of more “creative” solutions
to ambiguous problems than are systems with simpler autonomy, or automated
systems, which can only handle problems that have been foreseen.
A system’s behavior may be represented by more than one of these descrip-
tions. A domestic example of such a system, iRobot’s Roomba™ line of robotic
vacuum cleaners, illustrates how prosaic automation and autonomy have become.
The Roomba must navigate a house full of obstacles while ensuring that the
carpet is cleaned—a challenging task for a consumer product. We can evaluate
the Roomba’s characteristics using the definitions given above:
• The Roomba user provides high-level goals (vacuum the floor, but don’t
vacuum here, vacuum at this time of day, etc.)
• The Roomba must make some choices itself (how to identify the room
geometry, avoid obstacles, when to recharge its battery, etc).
• The Roomba also has some automated behavior and encounters situa-
tions it cannot resolve on its own (e.g., it gets stuck, it can’t clean its own
brushes, etc.).
Overall, the Roomba has marginal autonomy, and there are numerous situa-
tions it cannot deal with by itself. It is certainly not intelligent. However, it does
have basic on-board diagnostic capability (“clean my brushes!”) and a strategy
(as seen in Figure 1) for vacuuming a room about whose size and layout it was
initially ignorant. Roomba demonstrates the potential for the widespread use of
autonomous systems in our daily lives.
AUTONOMY FOR SPACE MISSIONS
So much has been written on this topic that we can barely scratch the surface
of a deep and rewarding discussion in this short article. However, we can examine
a few recurring themes. The needs for autonomous systems depend, of course,
on the mission. Autonomous operation of the spacecraft, its subsystems, and the
science instruments or payload become increasingly important as the spacecraft
OCR for page 89
1
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN SPACE
FIGURE 1 Long-exposure image of Roomba’s path while navigating a room. Photo by
Paul Chavady, used with permission.
is required to deal with phenomena that occur on time scales shorter than the
communication latency between the spacecraft and Earth. But all spacecraft must
maintain function “to ensure that hardware and software are performing within
desired parameters, and [find] the cause of faults when they occur” (Post and
Rose, undated).
virtual Presence
“Virtual presence” is often cited as a compelling need for autonomy. Scien-
tific investigation, including data analysis and discovery, becomes more challeng -
ing the farther away the scientific instruments are from the locus of control. Doyle
(2002) suggests that “. . . a portion of the scientist’s awareness will begin to move
onboard, i.e., an observing and discovery presence. knowledge for discriminat-
ing and determining what information is important would begin to migrate to the
space platform.” Marvin Minsky (1980), a pioneer of artificial intelligence, made
the following observation about the first lunar landing mission in 1969:
With a lunar telepresence vehicle making short traverses of one kilometer per
day, we could have surveyed a substantial area of the lunar surface in the ten
years that have slipped by since we landed there.”
OCR for page 89
2 FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
Add another three decades, and Minsky’s observation takes on even greater
relevance.
Traversing extraterrestrial sites is just one example of the ongoing “dirty, dull,
dangerous” work that it is not cost-effective, practical, or safe for humans to do.
yet these tasks have great potential for long-term benefits. As Minsky pointed out,
even if the pace of investigation or work is slower than what humans in situ might
accomplish, the cumulative effort can still be impressive. The Mars Exploration
Rovers are a fine example. In the six years since they landed, they have jointly
traversed more than 18 miles and collected hundreds of thousands of images.
Thus, autonomous systems can reduce the astronauts’ workload on crewed
missions. An astronaut’s limited, valuable time should not be spent verifying
parameters and performing spacecraft housekeeping, navigation, and other chores
that can readily be accomplished by autonomous systems.
Another aspect of virtual presence is robotic mission enablers, such as the
extension of the spacecraft operator’s knowledge onto the spacecraft, enabling
“greater onboard adaptability in responding to events, closed-loop control for
small body rendezvous and landing missions, and operation of the multiple free-
flying elements of space-based telescopes and interferometers” (Doyle, 2002).
Several of these have been demonstrated, such as the Livingstone 2, which pro -
vided on-board diagnostics on Earth Orbiter 1 (EO1) (Hayden et al., 2004) and
full autonomy, including docking and servicing with Orbital Express (Ogilvie et
al., 2008).
Common Elements of Autonomous Systems
The needs autonomous systems can fulfill can be distilled down to a few com-
mon underlying themes: mitigating latency (the distance from those interested in
what the system is doing); improving efficiency by reducing cost and mass and
improving the use of instrument and/or crew time; and managing complexity by
helping to manage spacecraft systems that have become so complex they are dif -
ficult, sometime impossible, for humans on-board or on the ground to diagnose
and solve problems. Nothing is flown on a spacecraft that has not “paid” for itself,
and this holds true for the software that gives it autonomy.
SUCCESS STORIES
Where do we stand today in terms of deployed autonomous systems? Specifi-
cally, which of the technology elements that comprise a complex, self-sufficient,
intelligent system have flown in space? There have been several notable successes.
Four milestone examples illustrate the progress made: Deep Space 1, which flew
the first operational autonomy in space; Earth Observing 1, which demonstrated
autonomous collection of science data; Orbital Express, which autonomously
carried out spacecraft servicing tasks; and the Mars Exploration Rovers, which
OCR for page 89
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN SPACE
have been long-term hosts for incremental improvements in their autonomous
capabilities.
Deep Space 1. A Remote Agent Experiment
In 1996, NASA specified an autonomous mission scenario called the New
Millennium Autonomy Architecture Prototype (NewMAAP). For that mission, a
Remote Agent architecture that integrated constraint-based planning and schedul -
ing, robust multi-threaded execution, and model-based mode identification and
reconfiguration was developed to meet the NewMAAP requirements (Muscettola
et al., 1998; Pell et al., 1996). This architecture was described by Muscettola in
1998:
The Remote Agent architecture has three distinctive features: First, it is largely
programmable through a set of compositional, declarative models. We refer to
this as model-based programming. Second, it performs significant amounts of
on-board deduction and search at time resolutions varying from hours to hun -
dreds of milliseconds. Third, the Remote Agent is designed to provide high-level
closed-loop commanding.
Based on the success of NewMAAP as demonstrated in the Remote Agent,
it was selected as a technology experiment on the Deep Space 1 (DS1) mission.
Launched in 1998, the goal of DS1 (Figure 2) was to test 12 cutting-edge tech -
nologies, including the Remote Agent Experiment (RAX), which became the first
operational use of “artificial intelligence” in space. DS1 functioned completely
autonomously for 29 hours, successfully operating the spacecraft and responding
to both simulated and real failures.
Earth Observing 1. An Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment
Earth Observing 1 (EO1), launched in 2000, demonstrated on-board diag-
nostics and autonomous acquisition and processing of science data, specifically,
imagery of dynamic natural phenomena that evolve over relatively short time spans
(e.g., volcanic eruptions, flooding, ice breakup, and changes in cloud cover).
The EO1 Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) included autonomous
on-board fault diagnosis and recovery (Livingstone 2), as well as considerable
autonomy of the science instruments and downlink of the resulting imagery and
data. Following this demonstration, ASE was adopted for operational use. It has
been in operation since 2003 (Chien et al., 2005, 2006).
A signal success of the EO1 mission was the independent capture of volcanic
activity on Mt. Erebus. In 2004, ASE detected an anomalous heat signature, sched-
uled a new observation, and effectively detected the eruption by itself. Figure 3
shows 2006 EO1 images of the volcano.
OCR for page 89
FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
FIGURE 2 Deep Space 1 flew the Remote Agent Experiment, which demonstrated full
spacecraft autonomy for the first time. Figure courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.
OCR for page 89
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN SPACE
FIGURE 3 Images of volcanic Mt. Erebus, autonomously collected by EO1. NASA image
created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO1 Team.
Orbital Express
In 2007, the Orbital Express mission launched two complimentary spacecraft,
ASTRO and NextSat, with the goal of demonstrating a complete suite of the
technologies required to autonomously service satellites on-orbit. The mission
demonstrated several levels of on-board autonomy, ranging from mostly ground-
supervised operations to fully autonomous capture and servicing, self-directed
transfer of propellant, and automatic capture of another spacecraft using a robotic
arm (Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, 2006; Ogilvie et al., 2008). These
successful demonstrations showed that servicing and other complex spacecraft
operations can be conducted autonomously.
Mars Exploration Rovers
Since landing on Mars in 2004, the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Oppor-
tunity, have operated with increasing levels of autonomy. An early enhancement
provided autonomous routing around obstacles; another automated the process of
calculating how far the rover’s arm should reach out to touch a particular rock.
In 2007, the rovers were updated to autonomously examine sets of sky
images, determine which ones showed interesting clouds or dust devils, and
OCR for page 89
FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
send only those images back to scientists on Earth. The most recent software
has enabled Opportunity to make decisions about acquiring new observations,
such as selecting rocks on the basis of shape and color, for imaging by the wide-
angle navigation camera and detailed inspection with the narrow-field panoramic
camera (Estlin et al., 2008).
REMAINING CHALLENGES
Despite the compelling need for spacecraft autonomy and the feasibility
demonstrated by the successful missions described above, obstacles remain to the
use of autonomous systems as regular elements of spacecraft flight software. Two
kinds of requirements for spacecraft autonomy must be satisfied: (1) functional
requirements, which represent attributes the software must objectively satisfy for
it to be acceptable; and (2) perceived requirements, which are not all grounded in
real mission requirements but weigh heavily in subjective evaluations of autono -
mous systems. Both types of requirements must be satisfied for the widespread
use of autonomous systems.
Functional Requirements
From our experience thus far, we have a good sense of the overarching func-
tional requirements for space mission autonomy. Muscettola et al. (1998) offer a
nicely distilled set of these requirements (evolved from Pell et al., 1996).
“First, a spacecraft must carry out autonomous operations for long periods
of time with no human intervention.” Otherwise, what’s the point of including
autonomous systems? Short-term autonomy may be even worse than no autonomy
at all. If humans have to step in to a nominally autonomous process, they are likely
to spend a lot of time trying to determine the state of the spacecraft, how it got
that way, and what needs to be done about it.
“Second, autonomous operations must guarantee success given tight dead -
lines and resource constraints.” By definition, if an unplanned circumstance arises,
an autonomous system cannot stop and wait indefinitely either for human help or
to deliberate on a course of action. The system must act, and it must do so expedi-
ently. Whether autonomy can truly guarantee success is debatable, but at least it
should provide the highest likelihood of success.
“Third, since spacecraft are expensive and are often designed for unique
missions, spacecraft operations require high reliability.” Even in the case of a
(relatively) low-cost mission and an explicit acceptance of a higher level of
risk, NASA tends to be quite risk-averse! Failure is perceived as undesirable,
embarrassing, “not an option,” even when there has been a trade-off between
an increased chance of failure and a reduction in cost or schedule. Autonomy
must be perceived as reducing risk, ideally, without significantly increasing cost
or schedule. Program managers, science principal investigators, and spacecraft
OCR for page 89
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN SPACE
engineers want (and need) an answer to their frequently asked question, “How
can we be sure that your software will work as advertised and avoid unintended
behavior?”
“Fourth, spacecraft operation involves concurrent activity by tightly coupled
subsystems.” Thus, requirements and interfaces must be thoroughly established
relatively early in the design process, which pushes software development forward
in the program and changes the cost profile of the mission.
Perceived Requirements
Opinions and perceptions, whether objectively based or not, are significant
challenges to flying autonomous systems on spacecraft. Some of the key require-
ments and associated issues are identified below.
Reliability
As noted above, the question most frequently asked is whether autonomy
software will increase the potential risk of a mission (Frank, 2008b). The ques -
tion really being asked is whether the autonomous systems have the ability to deal
with potentially loss-of-mission failures sufficiently to offset the added potential
for software problems.
Complexity
Bringing autonomous systems onto a spacecraft is perceived as adding
complexity to what might otherwise be a fairly straightforward system. Certainly
autonomy increases the complexity of a simple, bare-bones system. This question
is more nuanced if it is about degrees of autonomy, or autonomy versus automa -
tion. As spacecraft systems themselves become more complex, or as we ask them
to operate more independently of us, must the software increase in sophistication
to match? And, does sophistication equal complexity?
Cost
Adding many lines of code to support autonomous functions is perceived as
driving up the costs of a mission. The primary way an autonomous system “buys”
its way onto a spacecraft is by having the unique ability to enable or save the mis -
sion. In addition, autonomous systems may result in long-term savings by reduc -
ing operational costs. However, in both cases, the benefits may be much more
difficult to quantify than the cost, thus, making the cost of deploying autonomous
systems highly subjective.
OCR for page 89
FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
Sci-Fi Views of Autonomy
This perceptive requirement boils down to managing expectations and educat-
ing people outside the intelligent-systems community, where autonomous systems
are sometimes perceived as either overly capable, borderline Turing machines, or
latent HAL-9000s ready to run amok (or worse, to suffer from a subtle, hard-to-
diagnose form of mental illness). Sorry, but we’re just not there yet!
ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES
The principal challenge to the deployment of autonomous systems is risk-
reduction (real or perceived). Improvements can be achieved in several ways.
Processes
Perhaps the greatest potential contributor to the regular use of autonomous
systems on spacecraft is to ensure that rigorous processes are in place to (1) thor-
oughly verify and validate the software, and (2) minimize the need to develop
new software for every mission. Model-based software can help address both of
these key issues (as well as others) as this approach facilitates rigorous validation
of the component models and the re-use of knowledge.
The model-based software approach was used for the Remote Agent Experi -
ment (Williams and Nayak, 1996) and for the Livingstone 2 diagnostic engine
used aboard EO1 (Hayden et al., 2004). However, processes do not emerge fully
formed. Only through the experience of actually flying autonomous systems
(encompassing both successes and failures) can we learn about our processes and
the effectiveness of our methods.
Demonstrations
The next most effective way to reduce risk is to increase the flight experience
and heritage of autonomous software components. This requires a methodical
approach to including autonomous systems on numerous missions, initially as
“ride-along” secondary or tertiary mission objectives, but eventually on missions
dedicated to experiments of autonomy.
This is not a new idea. NASA launched DS1 and EO1 (and three other space-
craft) under the auspices of the New Millennium Program, which was initiated in
1995 with the objective of validating a slate of technologies for space applications.
However, today there is no long-term strategy in place to continue the develop-
ment and validation of spacecraft autonomy.
OCR for page 89
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN SPACE
Fundamental Research
We have a long way to go before autonomous systems will do all that we
hope they can do. Considerable research will be necessary to identify new, creative
solutions to address the many challenges that remain. For example, it can be a
challenge to build an integrated system of software to conduct the many facets
of autonomous operations (including, e.g., planning, scheduling, execution, fault
detection, and fault recovery) within the constraints of spaceflight computing
hardware. Running on modern terrestrial computers, let alone much slower flight-
qualified hardware, algorithms to solve the hard problems in these disciplines may
be intractably slow.
Academic experts often know how to create algorithms that can theoreti -
cally run fast enough, but their expertise must be transformed into engineering
discipline—practical, robust software suitable for use in a rigorous real-time
environment—and integrated with the many other software elements that must
simultaneously function.
Education
As we address the issues listed above, we must simultaneously educate
principal investigators, project managers, and the science community about the
advantages of autonomous systems and their true costs and savings.
OPPORTUNITIES
There are many upcoming missions in which autonomy could play a major
role. Although so far, human spaceflight has been remarkably devoid of autonomy,
as technologies are validated in unmanned spacecraft and reach levels of maturity
commensurate with other human-rated systems, there is great potential for autono -
mous systems to assist crews in maintaining and operating even the most complex
spacecraft over long periods of time. Life support, power, communications, and
other systems require automation, but would also benefit from autonomy (Frank,
2008a).
Missions to the planets of our solar system and their satellites will increas -
ingly require the greatest possible productivity and scientific return on the large
investments already made in the development and launch of these sophisticated
spacecraft. Particular destinations, such as the seas of Europa, will place great
demands on autonomous systems, which will have to conduct independent
explorations in environments where communication with Earth is difficult or
impossible. Proposed missions to near-Earth objects (NEOs) will entail autono -
mous rendezvous and proximity operations, and possibly contact with or sample
retrieval from the object.
A variety of Earth and space science instruments can potentially be made
OCR for page 89
100 FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
autonomous, in whole or in part, independently of whether the host spacecraft
has any operational autonomy. Autonomous drilling equipment, hyperspectral
imagers, and rock samplers have all been developed and demonstrated terrestrially
in Mars-analog environments. EO1 and the Mars Exploration Rovers were (and
are) fine examples of autonomous science systems that have improved our ability
to respond immediately to transient phenomena.
This is hardly an exhaustive list of the possibilities, but it represents the broad
spectrum of opportunities for autonomous support for space missions. Numerous
other missions, in space, on Earth, and under the seas could also be enhanced or
even realized by the careful application of autonomous systems.
CONCLUSIONS
Looking back, we have had some great successes, and looking ahead, we
have some great opportunities. But it has been more than a decade since the first
autonomous systems were launched into space, and operational autonomy is not
yet a standard practice. So what would enable the adoption of autonomy by more
missions?
• An infrastructure (development, testing, and validation processes) and
code base in place, so that each new mission does not have to re-invent
the wheel and will only bear a marginal increase in cost;
• A track record (“flight heritage”) establishing reliability; and
• More widespread understanding of the benefits of autonomous systems.
To build an infrastructure and develop a “flight heritage,” we will have to
invest. Earth-based rovers, submarines, aircraft, and other “spacecraft analogs”
can serve (and frequently do serve) as lower cost, lower risk validation platforms.
Such developmental activities should lead to several flights of small spacecraft that
incrementally advance capabilities as they add to the flight heritage and experience
of the technology and the team.
Encouraging and developing understanding will depend largely on technolo -
gists listening to those who might someday use their technologies. Unless we
hear and address the concerns of scientists and mission-managers, we will not
be able to explain how autonomous systems can further scientific goals. If the
autonomous-systems community can successfully do these things, we as a society
stand to enter an exciting new period of human and robotic discovery.
REFERENCES
Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. 2006. Orbital Express Demonstration System Overview. Tech -
nical Report. The Boeing Company, 2006. Available online at http://www.boeing.com/bds/
phantom_works/orbital/mission_book.html.
OCR for page 89
101
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN SPACE
Castaño, R., T. Estlin, D. Gaines, A. Castaño, C. Chouinard, B. Bornstein, R. Anderson, S. Chien, A.
Fukunaga, and M. Judd. 2006. Opportunistic rover science: finding and reacting to rocks, clouds
and dust devils. In IEEE Aerospace Conference, 200. 16 pp.
Chien, S., R. Sherwood, D. Tran, B. Cichy, G. Rabideau, R. Castano, A. Davies, D. Mandl, S. Frye,
B. Trout, S. Shulman, and D. Boyer. 2005. Using autonomy flight software to improve science
return on Earth Observing One. Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Commu -
nication 2(4): 196–216.
Chien, S., R. Doyle, A. Davies, A. Jónsson, and R. Lorenz. 2006. The future of AI in space.
IEEE Intelligent Systems 21(4): 64–69, July/August 2006. Available online at www.computer.
org/intelligent.
Doyle, R.J. 2002. Autonomy needs and trends in deep space exploration. In RTO-EN-022 “Intelli -
gent Systems for Aeronautics,” Applied Vehicle Technology Course. Neuilly-sur-Seine, France:
NATO Research and Technology Organization. May 2002.
Estlin, T., R. Castano, D. Gaines, B. Bornstein, M. Judd, R.C. Anderson, and I. Nesnas. 2008. Sup -
porting Increased Autonomy for a Mars Rover. In 9th International Symposium on Artificial
Intelligence, Robotics and Space, Los Angeles, Calif., February 2008. Pasadena, Calif.: Jet
Propulsion Laboratory.
Fong, T., M. Allan, X. Bouyssounouse, M.G. Bualat, M.C. Deans, L. Edwards, L. Flückiger, L. keely,
S.y. Lee, D. Lees, V. To, and H. Utz. 2008. Robotic Site Survey at Haughton Crater. In Proceed -
ings of the 9th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in
Space, Los Angeles, Calif., 2008.
Frank, J. 2008a. Automation for operations. In Proceedings of the AIAA Space Conference and
Exposition. Ames Research Center.
Frank, J. 2008b. Cost Benefits of Automation for Surface Operations: Preliminary Results. In Proceed-
ings of the AIAA Space Conference and Exposition. Ames Research Center.
Hayden, S.C., A.J. Sweet, S.E. Christa, D. Tran, and S. Shulman. 2004. Advanced Diagnostic System
on Earth Observing One. In Proceedings of AIAA Space Conference and Exhibit, San Diego,
California, Sep. 28–30, 2004.
knight, R. 2008. Automated Planning and Scheduling for Orbital Express. In 9th International
Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation in Space , Los Angeles, Calif.,
February 2008. Pasadena, Calif.: Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Minsky, M. 1980. Telepresence. OMNI magazine, June 1980. Available online at http://web.media.
mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Telepresence.html.
Muscettola, N., P.P. Nayak, B. Pell, and B.C. Williams. 1998. Remote agent: to boldly go where no AI
system has gone before. Artificial Intelligence 103(1–2): 5–47. Available online at: http://dx.doi.
org/10.101/S000-02()000-X.
Ogilvie, A., J. Allport, M. Hannah, and J. Lymer. 2008. Autonomous Satellite Servicing Using
the Orbital Express Demonstration Manipulator System. Pp. 25–29 in Proceedings of the
9th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space
(i-SAIRAS’08).
Pell, B., D.E. Bernard, S.A. Chien, E. Gat, N. Muscettola, P.P. Nayak, M.D. Wagner, and B.C.
Williams. 1996. A Remote Agent Prototype for Spacecraft Autonomy. In SPIE Proceedings,
Vol. 2810, Space Sciencecraft Control and Tracking in the New Millennium, Denver, Colorado,
August 1996.
Post, J.V., and D.D. Rose. Undated. A.I. In Space: Past, Present & Possible Futures. Available online
at http://www.magicdragon.com/ComputerFutures/SpacePublications/AI_in_Space.html .
Williams, B.C., and P.P. Nayak. 1996. A Model-Based Approach to Reactive Self-Configuring Sys -
tems. Pp. 971–978 in Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Menlo
Park, Calif.: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
OCR for page 89