Visual Data Mining of Robot Performance Data

We propose to design and develop VDM/RP, a visual data mining system that will enable analysts to acquire, store, query, analyze, and visualize recent and historical robot performance data. During mission operations, these capabilities will enable operators to more quickly and accurately detect and interpret data patterns that support or rebut candidate diagnoses or hypotheses about robot problems. During robot system development and experimentation, VDM/RP will enable analysts and robot designers to review robot test data to create and refine models that specify quantitative relationships among robot system health and status variables that hold for nominal and off-nominal modes. Key innovations include interactive arrays of timelines and graphs for visualizing multivariate, time-oriented data, temporal queries to search for significant data patterns, and intelligent assistance to simplify user selection of data, analyses, and visualizations. During Phase I, we prototyped visualizations to analyze K10 rover LIDAR scan failures. During Phase II, we will develop three successively more capable versions of VDM/RP for test usage and evaluation by NASA's Intelligent Robotics Group.

During Phase II, our initial user will be the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames Research Center. Other NASA applications include unmanned spacecraft mission operations and satellite network operations. Longer term target applications include manned spacecraft, habitats, and robots operated on the Moon and on Mars.

Non-NASA applications include manufacturers and operators of high-value systems, vehicles, communication networks, and manufacturing systems. Potential customers include the Department of Defense, aircraft and train manufacturers, airlines and railways, and semiconductor and chemical manufacturers.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.