Software for Creating Real-Time Monitoring Expert Systems

The Generic Spacecraft Analyst Assistant (GenSAA) computer program enables the rapid development of expert-system software for intelligent real-time monitoring and detection of faults in complex systems of hardware and software. The hardware/software systems to which GenSAA expert systems were originally intended to be applied are spacecraft-control centers that feature the Transportable Payload Operations Center (TPOCC) architecture, which is a UNIX-based architecture used at Goddard Space Flight Center. An expert system built by use of GenSAA is a rule-based system that assists spacecraft analysts during operation of a control center; the expert system receives spacecraft telemetric and ground-system-status data, makes inferences and draws conclusions about the data, and generates textual and graphical displays of the data and the conclusions. Continuing development of GenSAA includes generalization of its capabilities to build expert systems for non-TPOCC control centers and for non-spacecraft-control applications, which could include industrial process control, monitoring of networks, and monitoring and control of vehicular traffic.