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At least 271 records · Page 15

Scheduling Algorithm for Mission Planning and Logistics Evaluation (SAMPLE). Volume 3: The GREEDY algorithm

The functional specifications, functional design and flow, and the program logic of the GREEDY computer program are described. The GREEDY program is a submodule of the Scheduling Algorithm for Mission Planning and Logistics Evaluation (SAMPLE) program and has been designed as a continuation of the shuttle Mission Payloads (MPLS) program. The MPLS uses input payload data to form a set of feasible payload combinations; from these, GREEDY selects a subset of combinations (a traffic model) so all payloads can be included without redundancy. The program also provides the user a tutorial option so that he can choose an alternate traffic model in case a particular traffic model is unacceptable.

Dupnick, E.↗

Planning for rover opportunistic science

The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit recently set a record for the furthest distance traveled in a single sol on Mars. Future planetary exploration missions are expected to use even longer drives to position rovers in areas of high scientific interest. This increase provides the potential for a large rise in the number of new science collection opportunities as the rover traverses the Martian surface. In this paper, we describe the OASIS system, which provides autonomous capabilities for dynamically identifying and pursuing these science opportunities during longrange traverses. OASIS uses machine learning and planning and scheduling techniques to address this goal. Machine learning techniques are applied to analyze data as it is collected and quickly determine new science gods and priorities on these goals. Planning and scheduling techniques are used to alter the behavior of the rover so that new science measurements can be performed while still obeying resource and other mission constraints. We will introduce OASIS and describe how planning and scheduling algorithms support opportunistic science.

artificial intelligence↗

What we were asked to do

Recommendations are made after 32 interviews, lesson identification, lesson analysis, and mission characteristics identification. The major recommendations are as follows: (1) to develop end-to-end planning and scheduling operations concepts by mission class and to ensure their consideration in system life cycle documentation; (2) to create an organizational infrastructure at the Code 500 level, supported by a Directorate level steering committee with project representation, responsible for systems engineering of end-to-end planning and scheduling systems; (3) to develop and refine mission capabilities to assess impacts of early mission design decisions on planning and scheduling; and (4) to emphasize operational flexibility in the development of the Advanced Space Network, other institutional resources, external (e.g., project) capabilities and resources, operational software and support tools.

Source record↗

An optimization framework for interdependent planning goals

This paper describes an approach for optimizing over interdependent planning goals. We have implemented a methodology for representing and utilizing information about interdependent goals and their related utilities using the ASPEN planning and scheduling system.

planning scheduling optimization↗

A Photo Album of Earth Scheduling Landsat 7 Mission Daily Activities

Landsat7 is a member of a new generation of Earth observation satellites. Landsat7 will carry on the mission of the aging Landsat 5 spacecraft by acquiring high resolution, multi-spectral images of the Earth surface for strategic, environmental, commercial, agricultural and civil analysis and research. One of the primary mission goals of Landsat7 is to accumulate and seasonally refresh an archive of global images with full coverage of Earth's landmass, less the central portion of Antarctica. This archive will enable further research into seasonal, annual and long-range trending analysis in such diverse research areas as crop yields, deforestation, population growth, and pollution control, to name just a few. A secondary goal of Landsat7 is to fulfill imaging requests from our international partners in the mission. Landsat7 will transmit raw image data from the spacecraft to 25 ground stations in 20 subscribing countries. Whereas earlier Landsat missions were scheduled manually (as are the majority of current low-orbit satellite missions), the task of manually planning and scheduling Landsat7 mission activities would be overwhelmingly complex when considering the large volume of image requests, the limited resources available, spacecraft instrument limitations, and the limited ground image processing capacity, not to mention avoidance of foul weather systems. The Landsat7 Mission Operation Center (MOC) includes an image scheduler subsystem that is designed to automate the majority of mission planning and scheduling, including selection of the images to be acquired, managing the recording and playback of the images by the spacecraft, scheduling ground station contacts for downlink of images, and generating the spacecraft commands for controlling the imager, recorder, transmitters and antennas. The image scheduler subsystem autonomously generates 90% of the spacecraft commanding with minimal manual intervention. The image scheduler produces a conflict-free schedule for acquiring images of the "best" 250 scenes daily for refreshing the global archive. It then equitably distributes the remaining resources for acquiring up to 430 scenes to satisfy requests by international subscribers. The image scheduler selects candidate scenes based on priority and age of the requests, and predicted cloud cover and sun angle at each scene. It also selects these scenes to avoid instrument constraint violations and maximizes efficiency of resource usage by encouraging acquisition of scenes in clusters. Of particular interest to the mission planners, it produces the resulting schedule in a reasonable time, typically within 15 minutes.

Potter, William↗

Mixed Integer Programming and Heuristic Scheduling for Space Communication Networks

We developed framework and the mathematical formulation for optimizing communication network using mixed integer programming. The design yields a system that is much smaller, in search space size, when compared to the earlier approach. Our constrained network optimization takes into account the dynamics of link performance within the network along with mission and operation requirements. A unique penalty function is introduced to transform the mixed integer programming into the more manageable problem of searching in a continuous space. The constrained optimization problem was proposed to solve in two stages: first using the heuristic Particle Swarming Optimization algorithm to get a good initial starting point, and then feeding the result into the Sequential Quadratic Programming algorithm to achieve the final optimal schedule. We demonstrate the above planning and scheduling methodology with a scenario of 20 spacecraft and 3 ground stations of a Deep Space Network site. Our approach and framework have been simple and flexible so that problems with larger number of constraints and network can be easily adapted and solved.

Mixed Integer Programming↗

Crew Autonomy Scheduling: Scheduling Performance Pilot Study

The purpose of this pilot study is to quantify crew performance in self-scheduling through Playbook, a mobile-based scheduling and planning tool. By investigating human performance within the task of self-scheduling, we can further develop countermeasures that can mitigate deficient scheduling performance, and evaluate changes as a result of these countermeasures. Moreover, this research can advise the development of standards and guidelines for autonomous crews in future missions. In human spaceflight today, the task of planning crew member’s schedules falls to Ops Planners. It takes many weeks to plan due to the complex impact each day-to-day activity can have on other activities, crew members, and resources. These impacts are measured as constraints, and these constraints can result in temporal, ordering, or resource requirements. As future spaceflight missions span longer distances and the latency of communication between the crew and Mission Control Center (MCC) increases, the need for crew members to work independently from MCC will also increase. This results in a need for crew members to be able to autonomously plan and adjust their own schedules.

planning↗

Hypertext-Based Design of a User Interface for Scheduling

Operations Mission Planner (OMP) is an ongoing research project at JPL that utilizes Artificial Intelligence techniques to create an intelligent, automated planning and scheduling system. The challenge with a user interface is to 1) present as much information as possible at a given moment and 2) allow the user to quickly navigate through the various types of displays. This paper describes a design which applies the hypertext model to solve user interface problems. The general paradigm is to provide maps and search queries to allow the user to quickly find an interesting conflict or problem. Then allow the user to navigate through the displays in a hypertext fashion.

hypertext↗

Distributed network scheduling

We investigate missions where communications resources are limited, requiring autonomous planning and execution. Unlike typical networks, spacecraft networks are also suited to automated planning and scheduling because many communications can be planned in advance.

scheduling↗

Integrated flexible manufacturing program for manufacturing automation and rapid prototyping

The Kansas City Division of Allied Signal Inc., as part of the Integrated Flexible Manufacturing Program (IFMP), is developing an integrated manufacturing environment. Several systems are being developed to produce standards and automation tools for specific activities within the manufacturing environment. The Advanced Manufacturing Development System (AMDS) is concentrating on information standards (STEP) and product data transfer; the Expert Cut Planner system (XCUT) is concentrating on machining operation process planning standards and automation capabilities; the Advanced Numerical Control system (ANC) is concentrating on NC data preparation standards and NC data generation tools; the Inspection Planning and Programming Expert system (IPPEX) is concentrating on inspection process planning, coordinate measuring machine (CMM) inspection standards and CMM part program generation tools; and the Intelligent Scheduling and Planning System (ISAPS) is concentrating on planning and scheduling tools for a flexible manufacturing system environment. All of these projects are working together to address information exchange, standardization, and information sharing to support rapid prototyping in a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) environment.

Brooks, S. L.↗

Artemis III Sleep Scheduling with HYPNOS Mission Planning Tool HLS Yawn Prevention N Outer Space (HYPNOS)

HYPNOS ingests critical event data, such as burns and docking, and automatically shifts the crew’s sleep schedule to support these events where possible, while still being compliant with medical restrictions. HYPNOS analyzes the crew’s timeline in 3 states: 1) Awake, meaning the crew is active for work hours 2) Pre- and Post-Sleep, awake periods of limited activity as the crew gets ready to sleep or is waking up 3) Sleep, where the crew is inactive as they rest

Levi Gosdin↗

Expert systems tools for Hubble Space Telescope observation scheduling

The utility of expert systems techniques for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) planning and scheduling is discussed and a plan for development of expert system tools which will augment the existing ground system is described. Additional capabilities provided by these tools will include graphics-oriented plan evaluation, long-range analysis of the observation pool, analysis of optimal scheduling time intervals, constructing sequences of spacecraft activities which minimize operational overhead, and optimization of linkages between observations. Initial prototyping of a scheduler used the Automated Reasoning Tool running on a LISP workstation.

Miller, Glenn↗

Planning and Execution: The Spirit of Opportunity for Robust Autonomous Systems

One of the most exciting endeavors pursued by human kind is the search for life in the Solar System and the Universe at large. NASA is leading this effort by designing, deploying and operating robotic systems that will reach planets, planet moons, asteroids and comets searching for water, organic building blocks and signs of past or present microbial life. None of these missions will be achievable without substantial advances in.the design, implementation and validation of autonomous control agents. These agents must be capable of robustly controlling a robotic explorer in a hostile environment with very limited or no communication with Earth. The talk focuses on work pursued at the NASA Ames Research center ranging from basic research on algorithm to deployed mission support systems. We will start by discussing how planning and scheduling technology derived from the Remote Agent experiment is being used daily in the operations of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. Planning and scheduling is also used as the fundamental paradigm at the core of our research in real-time autonomous agents. In particular, we will describe our efforts in the Intelligent Distributed Execution Architecture (IDEA), a multi-agent real-time architecture that exploits artificial intelligence planning as the core reasoning engine of an autonomous agent. We will also describe how the issue of plan robustness at execution can be addressed by novel constraint propagation algorithms capable of giving the tightest exact bounds on resource consumption or all possible executions of a flexible plan.

Muscettola, Nicola↗

Expert systems tools for Hubble Space Telescope observation scheduling

This paper discusses the utility of expert systems techniques for Hubble Space Telescope (HST) planning and scheduling and describes a plan for development of expert system tools which will augment the existing ground system. Additional capabilities provided by these tools will include graphics-oriented plan evaluation, long-range analysis of the observation pool, analysis of optimal scheduling time intervals, constructing sequences of spacecraft activities which minimize operational overhead, and optimization of linkages between observations. Initial prototyping of a scheduler used the Automated Reasoning Tool running on a LISP workstation.

Miller, Glenn↗

Automated Planning for a Deep Space Communications Station

This paper describes the application of Artificial Intelligence planning techniques to the problem of antenna track plan generation for a NASA Deep Space Communications Station. Me described system enables an antenna communications station to automatically respond to a set of tracking goals by correctly configuring the appropriate hardware and software to provide the requested communication services. To perform this task, the Automated Scheduling and Planning Environment (ASPEN) has been applied to automatically produce antenna trucking plans that are tailored to support a set of input goals. In this paper, we describe the antenna automation problem, the ASPEN planning and scheduling system, how ASPEN is used to generate antenna track plans, the results of several technology demonstrations, and future work utilizing dynamic planning technology.

Estlin, Tara↗