Autonomous Resource Allocation and Task Management for Multi-Spacecraft Formation

Autonomous multiple spacecraft represent a critical enabling technology for future space missions. Currently, significant pre-flight planning and ground tasking are needed to design operational sequences for single-spacecraft missions. Multiple-spacecraft missions (especially formation flying tasks) dramatically increase the complexity of planning, sequencing and tasking, rendering them possibly intractable for current mission design approaches. The overall goal of this effort is to develop an Autonomous Dynamic Formation Planner (ADFP) applicable to multi-spacecraft formation flying tasks, using systematic methodologies for model-based prediction, optimal resource allocation and task/activity sequencing and control. During the proposed effort, SSC will develop and demonstrate an ADFP system for selected multiple-spacecraft formation-flying tasks, using representative constraints for onboard and formation resources. ADFP technology will provide a general framework for implementation of onboard autonomy for future multiple spacecraft missions, which is both resource and constraint-aware. Our project team includes subcontract support from the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Sciences, RIACS (a division of the Universities Space Research Association), and the Colorado Space Grant College (University of Colorado, Boulder).