Mission Planning System Research Articles

The RADARSAT-MAMM Automated Mission Planner

The Modified Antarctic Mapping Mission MAMM) was conducted from September to November 2000 onboard RADARSAT. The mission plan consisted of more than 2400 synthetic aperture radar data acquisitions of Antarctica that achieved the scientific objectives and obeyed RADARSAT's resource and operational constraints. Mission planning is a time- and knowledge-intensive effort. It required over a workyear to manually develop a comparable plan for AMM-1, the precursor mission to MAMM. This article describes the design and use of the automated mission planning system for MAMM, which dramatically reduced mission-planning costs to just a few workweeks and enabled rapid generation of what-if scenarios for evaluating alternative mission designs.

Applying information-retrieval methods to software reuse: a case study

Reuse of existing software for new purposes is a key aspect of efficient software engineering. But finding opportunities for reuse can be difficult when building a large software system with pieces of a large previous system. Our approach is to match formal written “requirements” used to define the new software against requirements used to define the old software; requirement pairs with words in common suggest software-reuse opportunities. We explored two matching methodologies that use information-retrieval techniques. We tested our methods by comparing two US military systems, the Aviation Mission Planning System and the Joint Mission Planning System. Our second tool reduced the time to find 50% of the matching requirements by 99.4% compared to manual matching.

Autonomous Driving with Concurrent Goals and Multiple Vehicles: Experiments and Mobility Components

In this paper, we describe a complete system for mission planning and execution for multiple robots in natural terrain. We report on experiments with a system for autonomously driving two vehicles based on complex mission specifications. We show that the system is able to plan local paths in obstacle fields based on sensor data, to plan and update global paths to goals based on frequent obstacle map updates, and to modify mission execution, e.g., the assignment and ordering of the goals, based on the updated paths to the goals. Two recently developed sensors are used for obstacle detection: a high-speed laser range finder, and a video-rate stereo system. An updated version of a dynamic path planner, Da, is used for on-line computation of routes. A new mission planning and execution-monitoring tool, GRAMMPS, is used for managing the allocation and ordering of goals between vehicles. We report on experiments conducted in an outdoor test site with two HMMWVs. Implementation details and performance analysis, including failure modes, are described based on a series of twelve experiments, each over 1/2 km distance with up to nine goals. The work reported here includes a number of results not previously published, including the use of a real-time stereo machine and a high-performance laser range finder, and the use of the GRAMMPS planning system.

Mission Planning for Space-Based Surveillance with the Space-Based Visible Sensor

The Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite was built and launched to make phenomenologicalmeasurements of backgrounds in space and targets under realistic scenarios. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory built a broadbandvisible wavelength sensor called the Space-Based Visible (SBV) sensor that is on the satellite. The primary motivation for the SBV sensor has been to demonstrate surveillance of satellites from a space-based platform.Historically, space surveillance has been conducted from ground-based sensors. The satellite was primarily designed for experiments with a long lead time for planning. However, it was essential to retain the  exibility to plan the actual space surveillance data collection events at the daily level while still abiding by the six-week planning cycle. Additionally, the system had to be automated to reduce the operational cost. SigniŽ cant challenges were the design of a language for experiment design, the monitoring of the resource cost of experiments, and the signiŽ cant pointing constraints on the satellite. The mission planning system that was set up for space surveillance experiments and its operational success are described.

Using viewpoints to define domain requirements

Although requirements reuse has many potential benefits, a lack of accepted methodology for sorting through a domain's myriad requirement specifications makes the task daunting. The authors' VODRD (Viewpoint Oriented Domain Requirements Definition) method relies on stakeholder viewpoints to organize user requirements. They describe their method and its application in a mission planning system for the European Space Agency.

Using the Shlaer-Mellor object-oriented analysis method

The adaptation of the Shlaer-Mellor object-oriented analysis method for engineering the requirements of a mission-planning system by a missile-guidance software group is discussed. The Shlaer-Mellor object-oriented analysis method provides a structured means of identifying objects within a system by analyzing abstract data types and uses these objects as a basis for building three formal models: information, state, and process. Several issues concerning the application of this method are discussed, including object selection and constraints, modeling and rotation, training, and CASE tool support. >

Tailoring the Pilot's Associate to Match Pilot Preferences

The research described in this paper documents the creation, development, implementation, and initial evaluation of a prototype intelligent system tailoring tool called the Mission Support Tool (MST). The MST is a ground-based, pre-mission interface between the fighter pilot, a larger global mission planning system and the electronic crew-member or Pilot's Associate (PA). The primary function of the MST is to furnish pilots with a means for tailoring the PA to their individual preferences for air-to-air combat missions. The MST helps the PA operate in a predictable manner by allowing the pilot to preselect, weigh, and tailor plans to be proposed to the pilot by the PA prior to the mission, which domain experts agree will pay high dividends in pilot acceptance, trust, and human-electronic crew-member teamwork.

Cartographic products in space shuttle earth observations operations

A description is given of the Automated Planning Mission Planning System (AMPS), a computer cartographic system developed by NASA in response to the need to streamline support for an increasing number and frequency of Shuttle missions and to enhance the quality of products produced for mission support. AMPS is menu driven and can plot orbit tracks and revolution times and site boundaries on Mercator projection maps. As an overall site selection process approaches, AMPS reduces the possibility of errors, is time effective, improves SSEOP products, and is adaptable for other related applications.

The space physics analysis network

The Space Physics Analysis Network, or SPAN, is emerging as a viable method for solving an immediate communication problem for space and Earth scientists and has been operational for nearly 7 years. SPAN and its extension into Europe, utilizes computer-to-computer communications allowing mail, binary and text file transfer, and remote logon capability to over 1000 space science computer systems. The network has been used to successfully transfer real-time data to remote researchers for rapid data analysis but its primary function is for non-real-time applications. One of the major advantages for using SPAN is its spacecraft mission independence. Space science researchers using SPAN are located in universities, industries and government institutions all across the United States and Europe. These researchers are in such fields as magnetospheric physics, astrophysics, ionosperic physics, atmospheric physics, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, planetary physics and solar physics. SPAN users have access to space and Earth science data bases, mission planning and information systems, and computational facilities for the purposes of facilitating correlative space data exchange, data analysis and space research. For example, the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC), which manages the network, is providing facilities on SPAN such as the Network Information Center (SPAN NIC). SPAN has interconnections with several national and international networks such as HEPNET and TEXNET forming a transparent DECnet network. The combined total number of computers now reachable over these combined networks is about 2000. In addition, SPAN supports full function capabilities over the international public packet switched networks (e.g. TELENET) and has mail gateways to ARPANET, BITNET and JANET.

An Interactive Multi-Objective Decision-Aiding System for Tactical Mission Planning

This paper describes an interactive computer-aiding system for tactical aircraft mission planning. A Multiple-Objective Decision-Making approach has been applied to the tactical mission planning domain. The planner specifies a set of potential flight routes and selects an optimum one as the result of a human-computer dialogue. In this dialogue, the planner iteratively specifies acceptable constraints and desired weights on several mission-related decision objectives. The system provides graphic feedback about the merit of the selected route vis a vis the specified objectives, and allows the planner to tailor the mission route plan to meet explicit decision objectives.