Gas House Autonomous System Monitoring, Year 1 (GHASM)

This project involves the development of an autonomous monitoring system capable of assessing the condition of every element in the system, continuously and comprehensively. The Gas House Autonomous System Monitoring (GHASM) will be an intelligent knowledge system making inferences and conclusions on the state of system elements i.e., sensors, valves. Knowledge will be integrated across elements and subsystems to implement functional capabilities of an Integrated System Health Management (ISHM). These capabilities include (1) anomaly detection, (2) diagnostics, (3) prognostics, and (4) user interfaces to provide the operator with an integrated awareness about the system's health. The GHASM Project's objective is to implement a knowledge-based capability that autonomously monitors and captures anomalies in the system. The implementation is targeted for the new hydrogen system within the High Pressure Gas Facility (HPGF) or Gas House at NASA's Stennis Space Center (SSC). The technology has been evolving for approximately 8 years at SSC. It consists of a software toolkit built using the Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Gensym G2 software platform. In the past 3 years, the technology has been validated at KSC's Cryogenic Testbed Laboratory. This will be the first implementation on an operational system.

This technology is being used in the project, Autonomous Propellant Loading, which is funded by Advanced Exploration Systems. It is expected to potentially benefit Space Launch System (SLS) as well as activities associated with the Mars mission for In-Situ Resource Utilization and a Mars settlement. Autonomous monitoring and control capabilities may be used to operate any system. It is particularly desirable to operate complex systems and remote systems where it is difficult and costly to rely on operation by people. NASA ground, aeronautic, and space systems can benefit from this technology. The benefits include: (1) increase in safety with ISHM functionality – continuous and comprehensive monitoring, (2) decrease in operating costs through autonomy, and (3) enabling missions where systems are operated remotely – e.g. robotic and planetary missions. Any industry or government agency with these types of systems will benefit from this technology. It could be applied to for example, launch systems, test systems, and spacecraft.

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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