Cooperative Control and Localization of Multiple Spacecraft using a Multi-Agent Mission Operations System

Multi-satellite swarms are becoming very popular due to their low costs and short development time. Instead of large and costly monolithic satellites, small satellite swarms can be flown as distributed sensing platforms for atmospheric sampling, distributed antennas, and synthetic apertures among other exciting applications, delivering an even greater mission capability. This project contributes to the development and demonstration of a mission operations system for robust, coordinated operation of mobile agent swarms in dynamic space environments. Through a collaboration with the University of Hawai`i at Manoa, Interstel Technologies Comprehensive Open-architecture Solution for Mission Operations Systems (iCOSMOS) will be enhanced to coordinate and control swarms of space vehicles and other assets. The proposed iCOSMOS-Swarm will enable systematic motion planning, robust state estimation, and coordination for multiple agents. The major tasks include (1) the development of a scalable multi-agent coordination module to coordinate, control, and guide a large agent swarms, a multi-nodal software architecture for diverse (heterogeneous) assets, and a multi-agent state estimation module for robust navigation, (2) enhanced system performance with improved data handling and synthesis, message passing and dynamic nodal configuration, and (3) significantly enhanced simulation capabilities to support up to dozens of simultaneous nodes, end-to-end simulation of 20 satellite nodes in real time or up to 1000x real time or more, and full visualization of the mission plans before execution. The anticipated results include the software source code for iCOSMOS-Swarm and the results from a baseline benchmark missions with one microsat and 4 CubeSats to collect dynamic, multi-dimensional data sets over a wildfire outbreak or similar events through the use of multiple detectors, spread out in time, space and spectrum. Controlling swarms of satellites in the dynamic of space is challenging. There is an absence of comprehensive open source software solutions for the control and tasking of satellite swarms. Existing swarm management solutions assume accurate positioning; there is a pressing need for a swarm control with HCL capabilities. iCOSMOS-Swarm meets both these needs.   Technologies like F’ focus on embedded systems, and OpenMCT offers visualization of mission data, iCOSMOS-Swarm is capable of performing each. What CloudCT does for clouds, iCOSMOS-Swarm will do for a wide variety of earthly phenomena.   The system offers robust position sensing in harsh conditions, dynamic coordination of agents, collision avoidance and flocking capabilities. iCOSMOS-Swarm simplifies mission planning, coordination, and execution.   Satellite swarms are increasingly popular due to their low cost and short development time. Instead of costly monolithics, satellite swarms fly as distributed sensing platforms for a wide variety of applications, delivering greater mission capability and more data for less expense. Main objectives of the work to be done are: Develop iCOSMOS tools for efficient swarm operations, including operations planning, monitoring, management, tasking, visualization, and data handling; Expand MAC with high-level trajectory planning using optimal orbital transition trajectories; Expand MAC with multi-agent attitude planning to optimize target coverage; Enhance HCL with proper handling of anisotropic sensor noise distributions and FDIR; Improve autonomy of nodal assets in the swarm; Complete conceptual designs of Mothership and ChildSat spacecraft; Develop hardware-in-the-loop simulations to validate performance; Able to visualize mission plans before execution.   The proposed deliverables to NASA include: Software source code for iCOSMOS-Swarm; Software documentation for iCOSMOS-Swarm with tutorials and examples; Significantly enhanced satellite swarm simulation capabilities supporting up to dozens of simultaneous nodes (real-time up to 1000x real-time); Significantly enhanced system performance with improved message passing, data handling and synthesis, including dynamic nodal autonomy and configuration; Results and analysis of a baseline benchmark mission with one microsat and 4 CubeSats, simulating the collection of dynamic, multi-dimensional data sets over a wildfire outbreak (or similar) through the use of multiple detectors, spread out in time, space and spectrum.

iCOSMOS-Swarm will enable scalable mission control supporting multiple and heterogeneous assets simultaneously. This coordination improves support for remote sensing of terrestrial or planetary missions (Earth, lunar, Mars), utilizing diverse NASA assets such as aerial, ground, subterranean, and underwater agents. Example missions include tracking of dynamic events (e.g. wildfires) and monitoring of environmental conditions (e.g. climate change) where swarms of agents will provide improved remote sensing outcomes over large areas and volumes. iCOSMOS-Swarm will benefit companies in agriculture, forestry, environmental management, emergency services, utilities and insurance, also federal, state, and local governments. It is cost-effective, open-source, highly customizable, supports heterogeneous assets in a variety of contexts, including unmanned vehicles. iCOSMOS-Swarm is ideal for those in need of affordable swarm control solutions.

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