Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
6.4.1 Operations Enabled by Remote Agent Design
Although the functionality assigned in the previous section to Remote Agents
potentially could equally well have been implemented onboard in a more con-
ventional fashion, a major asset of the Remote Agent formulation would have
been lost. If onboard implementations of these functions are evaluated as sep-
arate entities on an objective cost-benefit basis, for most GSFC missions, one
would probably find that more than half of those items could be developed
more cost effectively in the ground system and would not significantly reduce
operational costs if migrated onboard.
In particular, the following functions looked at in isolation should probably
remain on the ground:
•
Virtually all calibration, both science and engineering
•
All data trending (although limit checking should remain onboard)
•
Any smart fault detection, diagnosis, isolation, and correction
•
Any look-ahead modeling
•
All target planning; nearly all scheduling
•
All specification of SI commanding and configuration (execution onboard)
•
Nearly all communications decision making
•
Nearly all SI data processing
The remainder already are largely onboard autonomous functions, or in the
near future, will be likely.
However, an analysis of this kind misses a key aspect of the Remote Agent
formulation, namely the ability of agents to engage in “conversations,” ne-
gotiate, and collaborate. It is that distinctive nature of Remote Agents that
makes their collective functionality more powerful than the simple sum of
their component parts.
In the subsections that follow, examples are provided illustrating how the
cooperative capacity of Remote Agents can yield more sophisticated (and more
profitable) performance than they could achieve working alone. Operational
capabilities enabled by the agents working together include:
1.
Dynamic schedule adjustment driven by calibration status
2.
TOO scheduling driven by realtime science observations
3.
Goal-driven target scheduling
4.
Opportunistic science and calibration scheduling
5.
Scheduling goals adjustment driven by anomaly response
6.
Adaptable scheduling goals
7.
SI direction of spacecraft operation
8.
Beacon mode communications
9.
Resource management
