Resilient Spacecraft Executive: An Architecture for Risk-Aware Operations in Uncertain Environments

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the latest results from the Resilient Space Systems project, a joint effort between Caltech, MIT, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The goal of the project is to define a resilient, risk-aware software architecture for onboard, real-time autonomous operations that can robustly handle uncertainty in spacecraft behavior within hazardous and unconstrained environments, without unnecessarily increasing complexity. The architecture, called the Resilient Spacecraft Executive (RSE), has been designed to support three functions: (1) adapting to component failures to allow graceful degradation, (2) accommodating environments, science observations, and spacecraft capabilities that are not fully known in advance, and (3) making risk-aware decisions without waiting for slow ground-based reactions. In implementation, the bulk of the RSE effort has focused on the parts of the architecture used for goal-directed execution and control, including the deliberative, habitual, and reflexive modules. We specify the capabilities and constraints needed for each module, and discuss how we have extended the current state-of-the-art algorithms so that they can supply the required functionality, such as risk-aware planning in the deliberative module that conforms to mission operator-supplied priorities and constraints. Furthermore, the RSE architecture is modular to enable extension and reconfiguration, as long as the embedded algorithmic components exhibit the required risk-aware behavior in the deliberative module and risk-bounded behavior in the habitual module. To that end, we discuss some feasible, useful RSE configurations and deployments for a Mars rover case and an autonomous underwater vehicle case. We also discuss additional capabilities that the architecture requires to support needed resiliency, such as onboard analysis and learning.

Additional details