Design for autonomous mission planning system

Abstract

Because of indeterminateness of the environment and delay of the communication, deep space spacecraft is required to be autonomous. Planning technology is studied in order to realize the spacecraft autonomy. First, a multi‐agent planning system (MAPS) based on temporal constraint satisfaction is proposed for concurrency and distribution of spacecraft system. Second, timeline concept is used to describe simultaneous activity, continue time, resource and temporal constraints. Third, for every planning agent in the MAPS, its layered architecture is designed and planning algorithm based on the temporal constraint satisfaction is given in detail. Finally, taking some key subsystems of deep space explorer as an example, the prototype system of MAPS is implemented. The results show that with the communication and cooperation of the planning agents, the MAPS is able to produce complete plan for explorer mission quickly under the complex constraints of time and resource.

Citation

Rui, X., Ping‐yuan, C., Xiao‐fei, X. and Hu‐tao, C. (2003), "Design for autonomous mission planning system", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 75 No. 4, pp. 365-371. https://doi.org/10.1108/00022660310484284