Autonomous Dynamic Instrument Reconfiguration

Many types of Earth observing missions can benefit from having information systems that allow the mission platform and its instruments to quickly adapt to changing conditions. Such adaptability requires, of course, the ability to make intelligent decisions quickly, and a large number of researchers have been making great strides in this area in recent years. This paper discusses the fusion of three distinct information systems technologies for space instrumentation into a single integrated platform: dynamic instrument reconfigurability, hard realtime performance, and the tight integration of an autonomous agent to leverage these capabilities. The approach to this fusion of capabilities is modeled in some ways after higher organisms, which have an autonomous agent (the brain), high-performance or highly complex components (the circulatory system, for example), and high-level ways of controlling the gross state of the individual subsystems (such as adrenalin, hormones, and endocrine functions). In essence, in higher organisms, the brain frequently does not make detailed decisions about the operation of individual tissues, but rather uses chemicals to broadly "reconfigure" systems for new modes of operation, without having a detailed knowledge of what that means. Our new technology weds a hard realtime system with an autonomous agent and a configuration database to allow rapid reconfiguration of mission assets in response to external stimuli. This will enable new kinds of observation scenarios, and the ability to switch rapidly between them, to be built into new missions much more easily. I. OVERVIEW OF THE TECHNOLOGY We have developed prototype tools that have the following capabilities, and we are working on demonstration of these capabilities in science testbeds in laboratories at JPL: • Dynamic instrument (re)configuration from onboard “database” of parameters • Hard realtime performance for instruments • Integration with high-level autonomous control The reconfiguration capability has been developed in the context of a system requiring extremely high realtime performance, as is typical of more and more observing systems, such as systems requiring precision structural control or realtime compensation. We are also demonstrating the integration of advanced autonomy technologies, already developed for flying spacecraft, with this high performance and reconfigurability. Dynamic reconfiguration provides flexibility to science and engineering teams, reducing mission costs and risks, while the additional integration of autonomy with reconfigurability and high performance will allow instruments to react to events in ways previously not possible, greatly enhancing instrument capabilities for opportunistic observing. The technology that has been developed is of a generic nature, and is conceived as being reusable by a wide variety of earth observing instruments. One of the major products of this effort is a packaged software product that is tailored for ease of reuse by multiple missions, built around industry standards, including your