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Monitoring and Diagnosis of Complex Software and Hardware for Earth Observing Missions
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| The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) onboard the Earth Observing One (EO-1) mission has demonstrated the potential of autonomous systems to maximize scientific return. As complex software systems are being developed to control space assets and optimize onboard operations, there is a growing need for verification and validation of these systems. However, verification is traditionally performed offline during design and development, and does not guarantee a safeguard from all possible system failures. To complement offline verification techniques and ensure extremely high reliability operations, we propose to develop an onboard model-based fault management system to monitor and diagnose complex software and hardware systems, and track the progress of high-level mission objectives, in the context of the EO-1 mission. Our proposed technology will extend previous hardware diagnosis engines, such as Livingstone, to mixed hardware and software systems in several ways. First, it will monitor embedded software and diagnose software anomalies to enable robust execution and maximum science return. Second, monitoring software state will be used for refining the diagnosis of hardware components. Finally, the proposed engine will be capable of diagnosing in the presence of delayed symptoms, for the general case of mixed hardware and software systems. We will demonstrate the capability of the new model-based fault management by diagnosing ASE software and the progress of the high-level scientific goals. To assure the authenticity of the demonstration, we will integrate this fault management system with the ASE software and test by simulating the actual software anomalies detected during the execution of ASE onboard the EO-1 mission. We additionally propose an optional 12 month extension to flight validate the capability on EO-1. This proposal directly responds to the Applied Information Systems Research (AISR) program objectives of NASA's Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES). In particular, our technology is expected to enhance the science productivity of NASA's space flight missions that are sponsored by the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). The proposal will build upon the success of the ASE onboard the EO-1 mission, by providing an onboard capability for monitoring and diagnosing software and hardware systems, based on lessons learned from the ASE. Enhancing the ASE software through the proposed fault management capability will enable extremely high reliability operations, resulting in an increased return of scientific data. This proposal also responds to NASA's Strategic National Objective to �Study the Earth system from space and develop new space-based and related capabilities for this purpose.� The maturation and validation of our proposed technology in the context of EO-1 will demonstrate its potential for long term impact on many future NASA missions that are increasingly relying on complex software and hardware systems. |
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