Marshal: Maintaining Evolving Models

SIFT proposes to design and develop the Marshal system, a mixed-initiative tool for maintaining task models over the course of evolving missions. Marshal-enabled planning and scheduling systems will maintain task models so that they are in tighter correspondence with the current operating context. Marshal will provide a simple dialogue based interface to update models and affordances for incomplete or imprecise user inputs. Marshal will actively diagnose user created plans to identify and rank queries so that users can maintain the most relevant task model constraints. Marshal's capabilities will stem from how it represents and reasons with a family of possible task model interpretations. As users add new constraints that may be incomplete, imprecise, or temporary, Marshal creates interpretations of the constraints. With user feedback, Marshal updates the interpretations to more closely match their intended task model. With a family of models, Marshal can compute the expectation that user plans are consistent. Marshal also computes diagnoses explaining which assumptions about the user's intended model lead to inconsistency. From the diagnoses, Marshal populates a queue of potential plan flaws that the user can address at their convenience through natural and informative dialogues. As users interact with Marshal, it automatically maintains task models so that they can better serve mission planners as missions evolve.

We will target Marshal as a key technology for handling evolving and changing task models for all NASA missions. Many NASA missions evolve and grow as they are occurring. For instance, the Mars Exploration Rover mission has expanded greatly beyond its original mission parameters. As a general-purpose model evolution tool, Marshal will be capable of handling complex domain constraints in such domains. Marshal has high applicability to analog missions where operations methodologies are evolved (i.e., Desert RATS and NEEMO). Further, any mission for geologic centric (i.e., planetary surface or asteroid) exploration and ISS crew planning will require occasional on-the-fly modification of procedures and tasks. Finally, as the possibility of long distance spaceflights draws ever closer, NASA will require technologies capable of duplicating or replacing current ground control tasks. We will work toward making Marshal a viable candidate for increasing the autonomy of astronauts during these flights.

We will develop Marshal technologies to be applicable across a variety of domains, beyond those at NASA. At SIFT, we have extensive knowledge in planning and scheduling for in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), satellites, and ground troop movements. These domains touch on a range of organizations, including the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), the Office of Navel Research (ONR) and the Army Research Laboratory (ARL).

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 5) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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