Abstract: Plan Execution for Autonomous Spacecraft

Barney Pell, Erann Gat, Ron Keesing, Nicola Muscettola, and Ben Smith.

Appears in the Working Notes of the AAAI Fall Symposium on Plan Execution, Cambridge, MA, 1996.

The New Millennium Remote Agent (NMRA) will be the first AI system to control an actual spacecraft. The spacecraft domain raises a number of challenges for planning and execution, ranging from extended agency and long-term planning to dynamic recoveries and robust concurrent execution, all in the presence of tight real-time deadlines, changing goals, scarce resource constraints, and a wide variety of possible failures. We believe NMRA is the first system to integrate closed-loop planning and execution of concurrent temporal plans, and the first autonomous system that will be able to achieve a sustained multi-stage multi-year mission without communication or guidance from earth.

Last updated Jan 21, 1997. Direct feedback to Barney Pell (pell@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov)