Page:Advanced Automation for Space Missions.djvu/366

 8. A standard telefactor system would be a convenient starting point for development of rovers for lunar and planetary exploration and prospecting. 9. A standard telefactor system would incidentally be a useful starting point for development of terrestrial remote control or remotely piloted vehicle equipment for use in hostile environments. To achieve construction of a prototype standard telefactor system with minimum cost, it would appear appropriate to utilize some of the personnel already familiar with this and who have had practical experience in the construction and operation of the major subsystems. A conventional aerospace contractor even if well provided with funding and facilities is likely to misunderstand some of the problem areas discovered and resolved during 1956-1966, thus requiring costly reworking and rediscovery of old techniques. NASA should find means of implementing such an effort with leadership at one of its centers and with interested participation by NASA tteadquarters staff. After attainment of a satisfactory prototype of a standard telefactor system, several should be constructed and made available where needed most in the agency's automation program.

6.6 Computer Science and Technology NASA's role, both now and in tile future, is fundamentally one of information acquisition, processing, analysis, and dissemination. This requires a strong institutional expertise in computer science and technology (CS&T). Previous study efforts and reports have made recommendations to integrate current technology lnore fully into existing NASA programs and to develop NASA excellence in selected relevant fields of computer science. Recent studies have explored the research and development requirements of NASA field centers, and have identified particular R&D goals and objectives relevant to CS&T (ASC, 1980; EER, 1980; Sagan, 1980). In this section, the reconnnendations are considered from the perspective of the CS&T study team, together with the implications for CS&T of the various missions defined earlier in the report. Of particular concern in the present technology assessment is the evolving CS&T program required within the space Agency to support a major involvement of automation and machine intelligence capabilities in future NASA missions. The agency presently is not organized to support such a vigorous program in CS&T. Most apparent is the tack of a discipline office at the Headquarters level which supports research and development in computer science and which serves as an Agency adw_cate for the incorporation of state-of-the-art capabilities into NASA programs. NASA technical requirements with relevance to CS&T are presented and correlated with specific CS&T disciplines in this section. A general upgrading of computing facilities is recommended. Building an organization to maintain a state-of-the-art capability in the computing and information sciences is perhaps the greatest challenge for the future. The study group is hardly qualified to offer specific organizational recommendations to NASA, but encourages the agency to consider an organizational response and suggests some ideas which may be helpful. Finally, maintenance of a solid computing science institutional capability depends on a vigorous and continuing program of intellectual exchange with peer organizations in academia, industry, and government. A few suggestions are presented as to the possible components of such a program.

6. 6.1 NASA Technology Requirements This report, together with the report of the NASA Study Group on Machine Intelligence and Robotics (Sagan, 1980), has explored the application of advanced automation within NASA. In addition, there are general computer science capabilities required to develop and implement the types of missions described in the present document. These include robotics, smart sensors, mission operations, computer systems, software, data management, database systems, management services, human-machine systems, engineering, and system engineering. Robotics. The principal equirements associated with robotics which call upon the disciplines of CS&T include visual perception, manipulator control, and autonomous control. This latter category includes problem-solving and plan generation -the ability of a robot device to plan and to pursue its own macroscopic course of action. NASA requirements also argue for a robotic capability to perform intelligent data gathering and in some instances to provide a telepresence capability for a remote human operator. Smart sensors. Current programs such as NEEDS (see chapter 21 address requirements for smart sensing devices which selectively acquire data and analyze it for information value prior to consuming communications and storage capacity. These requirements include visual perception, image processing, pattern recognition, scene analysis, and information extraction. In addition, the notion of modelbased sensing shows promise for intelligent data acquisition. To conserve communications bandwidth, user-oriented data compression techniques are required which can result in a several orders-of-magnitude reduction in the amount of data transmitted. Mission operations. In the area of mission operations, a rather general symbolic modeling and representation capability is required to do planning, scheduling, sequencing, and monitoring, as well as fault modeling and diagnosis. This draws on problem-solving techniques within artificial