ARL Leads NASA Effort to Develop Smarter Machines for Space Missions

http://live.psu.edu/story/12133

ARL leads NASA effort to develop smarter machines for space missions
Pennsylvania State University
May 19, 2005

University Park, Pa. --- NASA has tapped Penn State's Applied Research
Laboratory (ARL) to lead a $9.6 million effort to give machines enough
computer-based "intelligence" to deal safely with component failure or
malfunction, with minimal human help, during unmanned deep space
exploration missions.

The co-principal investigators are Dr. Karl Reichard, ARL research
associate and head of ARL's Complex Systems Monitoring and Automation
Department, and Dr. Lora Weiss, ARL senior research associate and head
of ARL's Autonomous Control and Intelligent Systems Division. They lead
a team that includes NASA's Stennis Space Center and Ames Research
Center as well as three industry partners, Vector Technologies, Burke,
Va., Gormley & Associates, Irvine, Calif., and Applied Perception Inc.,
Pittsburgh, Pa.

The partners will operate under a recently-awarded, four-year contract
from NASA's Exploration Mission Systems Directorate that calls for $6.1
million of the $9.6 million to flow directly to Penn State to support
efforts by University researchers and their industry partners. The
remaining funding will support the NASA centers' participation.

"On long, unmanned, deep space missions, there is a need for equipment
to continue operating when something breaks or is about to fail,"
Reichard says.

"There is a need for both human-in-the-loop systems, in which the
machine waits for instructions from humans, and autonomous systems, in
which the machine assesses its own condition and collaborates with
humans or other machines in making decisions about what to do," he
adds.

For example, Reichard points out that during the current Mars
Exploration Rover mission, one of the rovers has developed a fault on
one of its wheels. However, the mission is continued because human
operators commanded the rover to change the way the wheel was driven by
the motors and avoid additional damage -- a human-in the-loop system.

In the future, using techniques developed through the new ARL-led
effort, system designers may be able to anticipate this situation and
provide the vehicle with the "intelligence" to solve the problem
itself.

Reichard says, "Our goal is to develop new approaches to integrating
control and condition monitoring systems for Intelligent Vehicle Health
Management that will be useful in a wide range of situations and will
be
transferable to the commercial sector, defense applications and
robotics
in addition to their application in deep space."

Penn State's Center for Space Research Programs (CSRP) was actively
involved in identifying the NASA opportunity for researchers at Penn
State and sending information to potential Penn State principal
investigators, preparing proposals and identifying teaming
opportunities.