Tube Map Interface for a Coupled Scheduling and Diagnostics System

We propose the concept of a tube map display as a means to effectively integrate schedule timeline information and fault diagnosis data into a single high value presentation. Tube maps are potentially a high value method of presenting multiple dimensions of information. This work will prove the feasibility of depicting combined schedule and fault information in the domain of asset scheduling using a communications simulation testbed. This testbed will be based upon key node and link abstractions of the space, ground and deep space networks. In order to simulate how mission schedules are affected by faults, a range of communication path faults can be selected by a user and injected into mission scenarios in order to gain further insights into how schedules can be tuned in real time to changing conditions on ground and space assets. Injected faults are modeled as a set of additional scheduling constraints in exactly the same way as other physical or mission preference constraints. The uniform constraint representation used capture mission requirements, preferences, constraints and faults can also be extended to multi-criteria optimization objectives for the resource schedulerÂ? enabling a mix of factors to drive the generation of the optimized schedule.