ASAP: Autonomy through on-board planning

Wojtkowiak, Harald; Balagurin, Oleskii; Fellinger, Gerhard; Kayal, Hakan

doi:10.1109/rast.2013.6581235

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Traditionally, autonomous satellite technologies have been explored in order to address the following issues: Communication delays : Space exploration missions where the spacecraft is at huge distances from Earth (e.g., Mars exploration), present delays in the communication subsystem that precludes ground operators to manage the spacecraft with agility. Not being able to react to unexpected situations may lead to catastrophic effects for the mission and hence has triggered the development of autonomous controllers that can detect and correct failures at subsystem and mission level Reduced visibility : Aligned with the previous issue, spacecraft orbiting in Low Earth Orbits (LEO) can only communicate with ground operators when they have visibility to ground stations.…”

Section: Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

Araguz

Bou-Balust

Alarcón

2018

Systems Engineering

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While monolithic satellite missions still pose significant advantages in terms of accuracy and operations, novel distributed architectures are promising improved flexibility, responsiveness and adaptability to structural and functional changes. Large satellite swarms, opportunistic satellite networks or heterogeneous constellations hybridizing small-spacecraft nodes with high-performance satellites are becoming feasible and advantageous alternatives requiring the adoption of new operation paradigms that enhance their autonomy. While autonomy is a notion that is gaining acceptance in monolithic satellite missions, it can also be deemed an integral characteristic in Distributed Satellite Systems. In this context, this paper focuses on the motivations for system-level autonomy in DSS and justifies its need as an enabler of system qualities.Autonomy is also presented as a necessary feature to bring new distributed Earth observation functions (which require coordination and collaboration mechanisms) and to allow for novel structural functions (e.g. opportunistic coalitions, exchange of resources or in-orbit data services).Mission Planning and Scheduling frameworks (MPS) are then presented as a key component to * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: {carles.araguz, elisenda.bou, eduard.alarcon}@upc.edu 1 implement autonomous operations in satellite missions. An exhaustive knowledge classification explores the design aspects of MPS for DSS, and conceptually groups them into: components and organizational paradigms; problem modeling and representation; optimization techniques and metaheuristics; execution and runtime characteristics; and the notions of tasks, resources and constraints. This paper concludes by proposing future strands of work devoted to study the tradeoffs of autonomy in large-scale, highly dynamic and heterogeneous networks through frameworks that consider some of the limitations of small spacecraft technologies.

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Section: Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent developments leverage on the benefits exploited in previous on‐board systems and are designed to run in the space segment. These systems take advantage of having real updated data with which they can predict their schedule more accurately.…”

Section: Mission Planning Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

Araguz

Bou-Balust

Alarcón

2018

Systems Engineering

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“…Those commands, which may include a myriad of requests and configuration changes, program the activities of the spacecraft based on plans of action generated at the ground segment. Modern satellite approaches, however, are moving toward a more autonomous concept where ground operators upload mission goals instead and allow the spacecraft to autonomously schedule its activities to meet those goals (de Novaes Kucinskis and Ferreira 2013; Wojtkowiak et al 2013). Mission goals inherently encapsulate complex and flexible command sequences that will be decomposed onboard and do not necessarily have a fixed execution time.…”

Section: In-orbit Operationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

³Cat-1 project: a multi-payload CubeSat for scientific experiments and technology demonstrators

Jove-Casurellas

Araguz

Via

et al. 2017

European Journal of Remote Sensing

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This article introduces 3 Cat-1, the first project of the Technical University of Catalonia to build and launch a nano-satellite. Its main scope is to develop, construct, assemble, test and launch into a low Earth orbit a CubeSat with seven different payloads (mono-atomic oxygen detector, graphene field-effect transistor, self-powered beacon, Geiger radiation counter, wireless power transfer (WPT), new topology solar cells and WPT experiment), all fitted in a single-unit CubeSat. On one hand, this is mainly an educational project in which the development of some of the subsystems is carried out by undergraduate and postgraduate students. The satellite demonstrates its capabilities as a cost-effective platform to perform small scientific experiments and to demonstrate some of the new technologies that it incorporates.

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“…are those implementing goal-based operations, where ground operators only modify the mission goals and allow the spacecraft to autonomously schedule its activities to meet the current goals [21,22]. Mission goals inherently encapsulate complex and flexible command sequences that will be decomposed on-board, and are not accompanied by a fixed execution time.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Design Guidelines for General-Purpose Payload-Oriented Nanosatellite Software Architectures

López

Marí

Balust

et al. 2018

Journal of Aerospace Information Systems

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Despite their limited lifespan and reduced cost, nano-satellite missions have proved to be suitable platforms for Earth observation, scientific experiments and technology demonstration. During the last years, the number of nanosatellite missions has noticeably increased, posing the need to improve several system characteristics to ultimately endorse the full potential of this class of spacecraft. In this context, this paper presents three design guidelines that can be applied in nano-satellite software in order to improve the system robustness, modularity and autonomy. The design guidelines presented in this paper, namely, hierarchy-enabled robustness, payload-oriented modularity, and on-board planning capabilities, are complemented with a structured review of complementary software techniques and architectural concepts that have been found in the literature. The paper justifies that these system-wide qualities are some of the most critical when designing flight software for CubeSat-like spacecraft and explores how they can improve mission performances and operability, enhance the system's tolerance to failures and ease the development cycles. Finally, this paper illustrates the application of the design guidelines by detailing the on-board software architecture for the 3 Cat-1, a CubeSat program carried out at the Nano-Satellite and Payload Laboratory of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC BarcelonaTech).

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ASAP: Autonomy through on-board planning

Cited by 7 publications

References 2 publications

Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

³Cat-1 project: a multi-payload CubeSat for scientific experiments and technology demonstrators

Design Guidelines for General-Purpose Payload-Oriented Nanosatellite Software Architectures

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ASAP: Autonomy through on-board planning

Cited by 7 publications

References 2 publications

Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

3Cat-1 project: a multi-payload CubeSat for scientific experiments and technology demonstrators

Design Guidelines for General-Purpose Payload-Oriented Nanosatellite Software Architectures

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

³Cat-1 project: a multi-payload CubeSat for scientific experiments and technology demonstrators