NESTA: NASA Engineering Shuttle Telemetry Agent

    Authors

    G. S. Semmel; S. R. Davis; K. W. Leucht; D. A. Rowe; K. E. Smith; R. O'Farrell;L. Boloni

    Comments

    Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    AI Mag.

    Keywords

    Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence

    Abstract

    The Electrical Systems Division at the NASA Kennedy Space Center has developed and deployed an agent-based tool to monitor the space shuttle's ground processing telemetry stream. The application, the NASA Engineering Shuttle Telemetry Agent (NESTA), increases situational awareness for system and hardware engineers during ground processing of the shuttle's subsystems. The agent provides autonomous monitoring of the telemetry stream and automatically alerts system engineers when predefined criteria have been met. Efficiency and safety are improved through increased automation. Sandia National Labs' Java Expert System Shell is employed as the rule engine. The shell's predicate logic lends itself well to capturing the heuristics and specifying the engineering rules of this spaceport domain. The declarative paradigm of the rule-based agent yields a highly modular and scalable design spanning multiple subsystems of the shuttle. Several hundred monitoring rules have been written thus far with corresponding notifications sent to shuttle engineers. This article discusses the rule-based telemetry agent used for space shuttle ground processing and explains the problem domain, development of the agent software, benefits of AI technology, and deployment and sustaining engineering of the product.

    Journal Title

    Ai Magazine

    Volume

    27

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2006

    Document Type

    Article; Proceedings Paper

    Language

    English

    First Page

    25

    Last Page

    35

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000240933700003

    ISSN

    0738-4602

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