Distributed cooperative systems for advanced automation: tradeoffs

The nature and benefits of cooperative systems, which have the potential to provide control systems with functions that will reduce human workload, are examined. Three applications relevant to spacecraft control are discussed. They are coordination among human controllers of interdependent spacecraft subsystems, autonomous operations through distributed planning, and common resource management. The CoopES (cooperating expert systems) prototype, a set of distributed operating systems services and a set of agents with specific expertise in the Space Shuttle control domain, is described. The tradeoffs involved in using the cooperative approach are considered