Operation-Aware ISHM for Environmental Control and Life Support in Deep Space Habitants

Global Technology Connection Inc, in collaboration with the University of South Carolina, an academic leader in real time diagnosis and prognosis, proposes to develop a Operation-Aware ISHM for Environmental Control and Life Support in Deep Space Habitants. The core innovations include: 1) Application of advanced fast diagnosis and prognosis algorithms in Lebesgue sampling framework for distributed life support systems; 2) A hierarchical structure that enables to deal with multidimensional FDP in LSS with capabilities of FDP reasoning from the health condition of devices to subsystems, which are grouped devices to realize certain functions in the LSS; and 3) Development and implementation of an automated contingency management model to incorporate the diagnostic and prognostic results from distributed monitoring system to mitigate the fault and find the optimal solution with regard to mission goals and constraints; 4) Case-Based Reasoning Engine to enable incorporation of human feedback on the operational significance;

NASA has to address the long communication delays between Mars and Earth, as well as increasingly more complex systems associated with habitants. These systems should be automated, monitored and diagnosed by mission control like any other near-earth mission. The proposed capability will add to the existing portfolio of PHM/SHM by addressing the need for an integrated system capable of considering the mission requirements and potentials for advancement of science in a case-by-case basis. NASA would highly benefit from proposed systems by (a) Concurrently predicting failures before they disrupt the mission or habitant�s safety, (b) Reducing false positives of such prediction and enabling a human-interaction with intelligent reasoning engine (c) identifying the remaining useful capability of the system. This will enable NASA to focus on the mission planning and recovery aspects, and manage the health of the system, rather than being blindsided by unexpected failures

The same methodologies could be applied to other commercial fleets of vehicles such as automobile/truck fleets, ship fleets, and armored and unmanned vehicles in order to detect safety issues due to improper process execution between people and automation, between people, and between automated units

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — 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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