From: AAAI Technical Report SS-95-07. Compilation copyright © 1995, AAAI (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved.
Action Representations
for Space Shuttle
Jane T. Malin
Intelligent
Systems Branch, ER2
NASA- Johnson Space Center
Houston,
TX 77058
malin@mickey.j sc.nasa.gov
Dan Ryan
Operations
Support
Debra
Schreckenghost
Metric&
NASA- Johnson
Space Center,
ER2
Houston,
TX 77058
{dryan,schreck}~mickey.jsc.nasa.gov
Weare involved in two advanced development projects
involving action representations.
The CONFIGsystem
simulates device behavior and mission operations procedures, using an action modeling approach. The SPRAT
analysis managementtool represents the plans and actions of mission preparation analyses. These projects
will support Space Shuttle ground operations personnel,
both in mission preparation analysis and in related analyses during missions. Weare working on a commonrepresentation for these two types of actions in plans and
procedures.
The Space Propulsion Robust Analysis Tool (SPRAT)
will provide intelligent support and automation for mission analysis set-up, interpretation, reporting and documentation [Malin et al., 1994]. SPRATassists Space
Shuttle propulsion consumables officers by helping plan
mission preparation actions, including the execution of
simulation and analysis software, the interpretation of
results from these computations, and the generation of
mission preparation reports summarizing decisions. Action managementconsists of creating and modifying an
action item list (the analysis plan), tracking the outcome
of actions on the list, and creating and modifying action
descriptions and their relations. Action list creation can
be viewed as plan creation, and action tracking as monitoring plan execution.
Because of the complexity and dynamic nature of mission preparation, SPRATsupports active user interaction, including domain knowledge acquisition and plan
creation, execution, and repair. SPRATprovides an action editor where the user can create or alter actions easily. Since actions from previous missions can be loaded
into SPRAT,they can be used in the future to evolve
standard "subplans" for the more typical aspects of mission preparation.
The CONFIGmodeling and simulation system will
provide intelligent
automation for procedure analyses
and failure impact analyses, by simulating the interactions between operations and systems with embedded
failures. Mission operations personnel need to determine
what procedures will be impacted due to failures, and
whether revised procedures can be executed successfully.
129
and
The CONFIGenvironment supports simulation and
analysis of continuous and discrete systems, by combining approaches from model-based reasoning, discrete
event simulation and graph analysis [Malin et al., 1993].
A primary CONFIGproject goal is to integrate functional and procedural reasoning components for modeling plans and procedures for nominal operations and
fault management. The CONFIG3 operations modeling
approach is designed to integrate with both planning representations and operations-execution-monitoring representations that are based on device and commandstates.
In the CONFIGproject, we have also been developing a multi-modeling concept to delineate the roles and
relations amongrepresentations of Goals, Processor Device Services, Control Actions and Processee Effects in
an Environment. We distinguish between goal and design specifications (competence) and selected assumptions that are relevant to successful production of a required effect (performance).
CONFIG
is a model-based tool to support design for
device operation and process control, and SPRATis
plan-based tool for supporting engineering analysis. Yet,
these two domains share commonrequirements to represent actions and procedures, and the Space Shuttle
mission context requires better integration.
References
[Malin et al., 1993] Jane Malin, Dan Ryan, and Land
Fleming. CONFIG- Integrated Engineering of Systems and their Operation. In Proceedings of the
Fourth National Technology Transfer Conference
Exposition (Technology 2003), number 3249 in NASA
Conference Publication, pages 97-104, Anaheim, CA,
1993. NASA.
[Malin et al., 1994] Jane Malin, Dan Ryan, and Debra
Schreckenghost. Modeling Actions and Operations to
Support Mission Preparation. In Proceedings of the
Third International Symposiumon Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, ~ Automation for Space (i-SAIRAS),
number 94-23 in JPL Publication,
pages 385-388,
Pasadena, CA, 1994. JPL.