Ontological Models to Support Planning Operations

Automation and autonomy technologies, such as automated planning software, are key elements in realizing the vision for space exploration. However, the major stumbling block to realizing the widespread use of automation tools for operations is capturing and maintaining the domain models -- the object types and subtypes, relationships among them and operational constraints -- needed to support such techniques. Our success in Phase 1 showed that it is possible for subject matter experts (SMEs) to author ISS model information to produce a consistent model useful for planning, scheduling and procedure execution. In this Phase 2 proposal we aim to fully develop the authoring and data integration portions of our design and to integrate the resulting models with our interactive planning aid for flight controllers. The benefits for NASA operations are that the resulting modeling framework will 1) make available a consistent domain model that need not be reproduced for each automation project, unify the often disparate sources of EVA and Core Systems information, provide for rapid update of ISS configuration information, thus allowing automation applications to provide results based on the most recent data, provide a consistent view of the domain so as to minimize error in authoring procedural data.