Space Age Software Packages Win the Award
EACH
YEAR , NASA'S INVENTIONS AND Contributions Board and the NASA Chief
Information Officer recognize software by offering the largest software
excellence prize in the United States. Remote Agent, the
first artificial intelligence software in history to command a spacecraft
millions of miles from Earth, and Genoa, a software package
that can predict material aging and failure, recently were named
co-winners of NASA's 1999 Software of the Year Award. Several runners
up and honorable mentions were also selected from 50 entries representing
more than 150 corporations, universities and government laboratories.
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| Genoa is the only tool in the world
that can accurately model the progressive aging and failure
of any monolithic or laminated metallic, ceramic or polymeric
material in two- or three-dimensional structures. Its impact
throughout industry is as enabling technology for the use of
all forms of advanced materials for the manufacture of new products
and novel construction and fabrication processes. |
Submitted by Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field (formerly Lewis
Research Center) in Cleveland, Ohio, Genoa is a space technology
program that is being applied to making everyday life safer here
on Earth by simulating and predicting aging and failure in all sorts
of structural materials, including high-tech alloys and ceramics
used in airplanes, cars, engines and bridges. Remote Agent, used
to control NASA's Deep Space 1 mission in May 1999, was jointly
submitted by Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, and
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Remote Agent
makes spacecraft cheaper and transforms science fiction into science
fact by allowing spacecraft to operate themselves.
Genoa's development began at Glenn in the 1970s and was commercialized
only about a year ago. A minority-owned small business is now marketing
the software, which is used by aircraft manufacturers and others.
It is the only software that can predict progressive aging and failure
of materials as diverse as metals, ceramics, concrete and all types
of composites. The ability to predict material and structural failure
helps manufacturers build stronger aircraft fuselages, engines,
car bodies and bridges. This is especially important today as commercial
aircraft fleets age and many elements of road and bridge infrastructure
reach the end of their useful lives.
Remote Agent, a giant leap in the world of artificial intelligence,
is the first software package ever used to autonomously control
a spacecraft. NASA scientists gave the software package primary
command of the Deep Space 1 spacecraft for three days in May, and
it more than met expectations. The software detected, diagnosed
and fixed problems, showing that it can make decisions and issue
spacecraft commands to keep a mission on track. This capability
will reduce the cost of future spacecraft operations as computers
become "thinking" partners along with humans. NASA scientists
believe that the artificial intelligence used on Deep Space 1 is
the precursor for self-aware, self-controlled and self-operated
robots, exploring rovers and intelligent machines.
 |
| Remote Agent, a software
package developed to allow autonomous control of a spacecraft,
is an artificial intelligence method for the spacecraft to be
able to operate without help from Earth. The software is now
operational with the completion of testing on Deep Space 1.
Photo credit: Boomerang Design Group |
"The Remote Agent approach to spacecraft autonomy signals
the dawn of a new era in space exploration," said Dr. Pandu
Nayak, Ames deputy manager of Remote Agent development. "Remote
Agent will enable new classes of missions and more effective use
of existing resources; and it will enable today's ground operations
teams to operate significantly more missions. Remote Agent and its
components are already being considered for a variety of missions
across the Agency."
Runners up for the Software of the Year Award were:
- Virtual Interactive Imaging and Cybersurgery for Distant
Healthcare is a suite of medical software applications to
help doctors remotely treat patients in space and on Earth. Developed
by Ames, these software tools enable high-resolution, near-real-time
rendering of medical images for doctors located thousands of miles
away from patients. For more information, visit the Center for
Bioinformatics at Ames at http://biocomp.arc.nasa.gov/home.html
- Generic Inferential Executor (Genie) is capable of automating
many plant floor production operations. This intelligent graphical
tool was designed by Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland, for automating spacecraft pass operations, incorporating
a novel scripting process to handle monitoring and decision making
under time and spacecraft decision constraints.
- Enigma Software Tools is NASA's premier tool for creating
spacecraft and other hardware simulation animations that possess
high-quality, unprecedented speed and fidelity. Rendering and
powerful animation tools, along with an intuitive interface and
extraordinary documentation, make it exceptionally easy to learn
and use. It was developed at Johnson Space Center in Houston,
Texas.
Receiving honorable mention were:
- NPARC Alliance Flowfield Simulation System is a structured,
multi-zone, compressible flow solver with flexible turbulence
and chemistry models, called WIND. It is a merger of three-existing
computational fluid dynamics codes: the original Alliance flow
solver from NPARC (the Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development
Center and NASA's Glenn Research Center), NXAIR (an Arnold code
used primarily for store separation problems) and NASTD (the primary
flow solver at McDonnell Douglas, now part of Boeing).
- ASPEN: Automated Scheduling and Planning Environment
is a modular, reconfigurable application framework, based on artificial
intelligence techniques, which is capable of supporting a variety
of planning and scheduling applications, including spacecraft
operations planning, planning for mission design, surface rover
planning, ground antenna utilization planning and coordinated
multiple rover planning. As a ground-based system, ASPEN uses
an internal spacecraft model and a set of high-level goals to
output a sequence of commands to be executed by the spacecraft
to achieve those goals. As a flight-based system, ASPEN receives
updates on spacecraft or rover state continuously and updates
the current plan to reflect environment changes. As an antenna
scheduling system, ASPEN has been used to autonomously control
a Deep Space Network station.
- RBNB DataTurbine™ is a powerful interapplication
manager that makes data communication easy. It is based on a patent
pending technology called "Ring Buffered Network Bus"
(RBNB), which provides a time-stamped data buffer between applications
and does the work of storing, retrieving and routing information.
Using Java™ and standard networking protocols (TCP/IP), RBNB
DataTurbine runs on most modern computers and operating systems.
On an intranet or the Internet, on the ground or in flight at
NASA, DataTurbine is a proven powerful solution for collaborative
data sharing.
In 1998, NASA awarded more than $350,000 in cash prizes to the
winners. Information about the 1999 winning teams and other finalists
is available at
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codei/swy99win.html
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