Software for Automation of Real-Time Agents

Closed Loop Execution and Recovery (CLEaR) is an artificial-intelligence computer program under devel- opment designed for automated command sequence generation, execution, monitoring, and recovery. As a component of the Deep Space Network’s (DSN’s) prototype Common Automation Engine (CAE), CLEaR relieves human operators of much of the burden of setting up, monitoring, and controlling a DSN communication station. CLEaR is also being adapted for automation of other realtime agents, such as robotic spacecraft, robotic land vehicles (rovers), and robotic aircraft. CLEaR enables a control computer at a DSN station to respond to a set of tracking goals by issuing commands to configure station hardware and software to provide requested communication services. CLEaR utilizes operational knowledge encoded into a textual declarative knowledge base to create command sequences, then executes the command sequences while monitoring their progress and dynamically modifying them on the basis of its operational knowledge when necessary. To generate a tracking plan (expressed as a control script) that satisfies the tracking goals, CLEaR utilizes an extended version of CASPER, which was described in “Software for Continuous Replanning During Execution” (NPO-20972) NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 26, No. 4 (April 2002), page 67. Then CLEaR monitors the execution of the tracking plan and modifies the plan in response to changing requirements and/or unforeseen events.