Greg Pisanich

Biologically inspired behavioral strategies for autonomous aerial explorers on Mars

The natural world is a rich source of problem-solving approaches. This paper discusses the feasibility and technical challenges underlying mimicking, or analogously adapting, biological behavioral strategies to mission/flight planning for aerial vehicles engaged in planetary exploration. Two candidate concepts based on natural resource utilization and searching behaviors are adapted to technological applications. Prototypes and test missions addressing the difficulties of implementation and their solutions are also described.

Mission Simulation Facility: Simulation Support for Autonomy Development

The Mission Simulation Facility (MSF) supports research in autonomy technology for planetary exploration vehicles. Using HLA (High Level Architecture) across distributed computers, the MSF connects users autonomy algorithms with provided or third-party simulations of robotic vehicles and planetary surface environments, including onboard components and scientific instruments. Simulation fidelity is variable to meet changing needs as autonomy technology advances in Technical Readiness Level (TRL). A virtual robot operating in a virtual environment offers numerous advantages over actual hardware, including availability, simplicity, and risk mitigation. The MSF is in use by researchers at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) and has demonstrated basic functionality. Continuing work will support the needs of a broader user base.

Fielding an amphibious UAV: development, results, and lessons learned

This report summarizes the work completed on the design and flight-testing of a small, unmanned, amphibious demonstrator aircraft that flies autonomously. The aircraft named ACAT (autonomous cargo amphibious transport) is intended to be a large cargo carrying unmanned aircraft that operates from water to avoid airspace and airfield conflict issues between manned and unmanned aircraft. To demonstrate the feasibility of this concept, a demonstrator ACAT was designed, built, and flown that has a six-foot wingspan and can fly autonomously from land or water airfield. The demonstrator was designed for a 1-hour duration and 1-mile telemetry range. A sizing code was used to design the smallest demonstrator UAV to achieve these goals. Initial flight tests from land and water were conducted under manual radio control and confirmed the amphibious capability of the design. Flight avionics that were developed by MLB for production UAVs were installed in the ACAT demonstrator. The flight software was also enhanced to permit autonomous takeoff and landing from water.

Cognitive Emotion Layer Architecture for Intelligent UAV Planning, Behavior and Control

Remote planetary exploration by autonomous vehicles in uncertain environments requires dynamic and highly adaptive decision making, behavior, and control mechanisms to maximize the chances of successful mission completion. We present in this paper an adaptive architecture for cognition, behavior and control of an autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Mars explorer called the Cognitive Emotion Layer (CEL) architecture that uses dynamical emotional response mechanisms to model explorers response to continuous stimuli and provides adaptive decision making and control capabilities for the exploration platform

An Abort Failure Detection, Notification, & Response System: Overview of an ISHM Development Process

Timely detection and response to catastrophic events during the launch and ascent phase of a launch system is of paramount importance to crew safety. This requires an abort system capable of detecting and confirming conditions that may lead to catastrophic failure, notifying the crew of the problem, and responding in time to allow the crew to escape safely. The development process for an Abort Failure Detection, Notification, and Response System is described. The process follows an iterative approach that first analyzes the vehicle design and identifies potential abort conditions. Those conditions are then characterized through modeling and simulation, with the results being used to identify required sensors and develop algorithms capable of detecting and responding to abort anomalies that could jeopardize the crew and mission. This process can be applied in the development of future crewed vehicles and other complex vehicle systems.

Initial efforts toward mission-representative imaging surveys from aerial explorers

Numerous researchers have proposed the use of robotic aerial explorers to perform scientific investigation of planetary bodies in our solar system. One of the essential tasks for any aerial explorer is to be able to perform scientifically valuable imaging surveys. The focus of this paper is to discuss the challenges implicit in, and recent observations related to, acquiring mission-representative imaging data from a small fixed-wing UAV, acting as a surrogate planetary aerial explorer. This question of successfully performing aerial explorer surveys is also tied to other topics of technical investigation, including the development of unique bio-inspired technologies. Imaging results from two seasons of flights at Haughton Crater, Devon Island, Canada, a well documented Mars Analog site, are presented.

Bandwidth Enabled Flight Operations: examining the possibilities

The Bandwidth Enabled Flight Operations project is a research effort at the NASA Ames Research Center to investigate the use of satellite communications to improve aviation safety and capacity. This project is a follow on to the AeroSAPIENT Project, which demonstrated methods for transmitting high bandwidth data in various configurations. For this research, we set a goal to nominally use only 10 percent of the available bandwidth demonstrated by AeroSAPIENT or projected by near-term technology advances. This paper describes the results of our research, including available satellite bandwidth, commercial and research efforts to provide these services, and some of the limiting factors inherent with this communications medium. It also describes our investigation into the needs of the stakeholders (Airlines, Pilots, Cabin Crews, ATC, Maintenance, etc). The paper also describes our development of low-cost networked flight deck and airline operations center simulations that were used to demonstrate two application areas: Providing real time weather information to the commercial flight deck, and enhanced crew monitoring and control for airline operations centers.