Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1.4.
Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) spacecraft (image credit:
NASA)
real-time control of such complex missions would lead naturally to designing
them to operate autonomously, with goals set at a higher level by human
operators and scientists.
1.2 Automation vs. Autonomy vs. Autonomic Systems
In this section, the differences between automation, autonomy, and autonomic-
ity are discussed. This establishes working definitions for this topic, and aids in
understanding the current state of flight automation/autonomy/autonomicity.
1.2.1 Autonomy vs. Automation
Since “autonomy” and “automation” seem to have a wide range of definitions,
it is appropriate to establish how those terms will be used in the context of
this topic. Both terms refer to processes that may be executed independently
from start to finish without any human intervention. Automated processes
simply replace routine manual processes with software/hardware ones, which
follow a step-by-step sequence that may still include human participation.
Autonomous processes, on the other hand, have the more ambitious goal of
emulating human processes rather than simply replacing them.
An example of an automated ground data trending program would be
one that regularly extracts from the data archive a set list of telemetry pa-
rameters (defined by the flight operations team (FOT)), performs a standard
