Spacecraft Application of Expert Systems

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play a major role in future spacecraft operation. Because the technology has not matured, knowledge-based systems will be incorporated in an evolutionary manner, with increasing responsibility as their performance is proven. Internal research at Boeing Aerospace Company has demonstrated that AI software development techniques, knowledge-based systems in particular, can be used to provide limited spacecraft subsystem automation. This capability represents a first step toward an evolutionary path to spacecraft automation. A likely progression will proceed to integrated subsystem control, automated planning and scheduling, plan execution, anomoly handling, and eventually to autonomous spacecraft operation. Although this paper is written in the context of Space Station the ideas and techniques identified should be easily transferable to spacecraft automation in general.