Accelerating American Energy Deployment through Autonomous Design
Informational presentation on the use of AI for autonomous design at INL's Scientific Computing and AI division (C500). Presented to visitors on 05/15/2025.
42 - ENGINEERING↗
SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Results for “Autonomous design”
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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Semi-autonomous design concepts for a Mars rover
Studies of rover mobility and surface rendezvous for a Mars Rover/Sample Return (MRSR) mission have been performed. The objective of these efforts has been to identify and address the most challenging issues and develop the most promising design options for the rover mobility and navigation subsystems. A series of trade studies culminated in three candidate design concepts: a large, but otherwise conventional four-wheel drive vehicle; a sophisticated and agile six-legged walking vehicle; and a greatly simplified legged vehicle. This paper summarizes the key design features for these three concepts. For each design, the approaches to vehicle locomotion, sensing and navigation are discussed first. Timelines are developed for the adopted concepts of operation which constrain the range of the remaining parameters. Estimates of rover mass, volume, and power are provided, and performance is projected for vehicle range, terrain traversibility and navigation accuracy.
Spiessbach, Andrew J.↗
The Right Size: Designing Autonomous Teams to go the Distance
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Meredith Russell↗
Autonomous spacecraft design methodology
A methodology for autonomous spacecraft design blends autonomy requirements with traditional mission requirements and assesses the impact of autonomy upon the total system resources available to support fault-tolerance and automation. A baseline functional design can be examined for autonomy implementation impacts, and the costs, risk, and benefits of various options can be assessed. The result of the process is a baseline design that includes autonomous control functions.
Divita, E. L.↗
Command and telemetry in autonomous spacecraft design
Some major steps are summarized in the evolution of autonomous design features for planetary exploration spacecraft. The control and data architectures for the Viking, Voyager, and Galileo spacecraft are considered. Telemetry and command capabilities are fundamental features of spacecraft design that have been successfully used for autonomous control. Also discussed is the Autonomous Redundancy and Maintenance Management Subsystem (ARMMS) concept. The software approach to autonomous control provides for modifications to the control process or the addition of new operating features during flight operations.
Turner, P. R.↗
Titan/Mars hard lander. Volume 2 - Autonomous capsule system design study
Autonomous capsule system design study for Titan/ Mars hard lander
Source record↗
Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was humanity’s first attempt to move a celestial body, demonstrating the capability to perform a kinetic impact on a planetary defense–relevant sized asteroid. DART was part of the international collaboration known as the Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA), involving NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), and scientists around the world. DART was a key step to demonstrating preparedness to respond to planetary defense scenarios, and it provides a crucial data point for likely outcomes. Near-Earth objects (NEOs) greater than 140 m in size are of particular interest to planetary defense because they have the potential to cause significant damage if they were to impact Earth, and also because they are difficult to detect, with less than 50% of the predicted population discovered as of 2022 (National Academies Press, 2022). With an appropriately sized spacecraft and enough warning (typically many years to decades), a kinetic impact can slightly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a way that, over time, prevents the asteroid from colliding with Earth in the future. DART’s target was Dimorphos, the smaller (~150-m-diameter) member of the binary asteroid system (65803) Didymos, which is a near-Earth, potentially hazardous, and well-characterized asteroid system. By simply observing changes to the system after impact and comparing them with a pre-impact reference, it was possible to use ground-based telescopes to observe the deflection in the orbit of Dimorphos after impact. Developed and operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the mission entered formulation in 2015 after multiple years of concept development. The project was administered according to NPR 7120.5, with technical oversight and funding through the Planetary Missions Program Office (PMPO) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and overall support as a directed mission from NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). The DART spacecraft hosted a singular payload, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO), and a deployable CubeSat contributed by ASI named the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube). On 11 September 2022, DART deployed LICIACube, which subsequently followed the DART spacecraft at a safe distance and observed the immediate aftermath of the DART impact. DART was designed to autonomously detect, navigate to, and impact Dimorphos. This autonomous design was chosen to maximize the probability of impact, since commanding from the ground could result in course corrections arriving too late. On the day of impact, 26 September 2022, the spacecraft’s autonomous systems successfully detected and locked on to Dimorphos, impacting its surface within 2 m of the center of the illuminated figure (Jensenius et al., 2023). No human intervention was required for a successful impact, demonstrating that humanity possesses the technology to perform a kinetic impact. Within 2 weeks of impact, it was clear that the orbit of Dimorphos had been significantly altered. On 11 October 2022, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that the new orbital period of Dimorphos was shortened by approximately 32 ± 2 min, from 11 h and 55 min before impact to 11 h and 23 min after impact. With additional observations over the following months, the accuracy of this measurement improved to a –33.24 min ± 1.4 s orbital period change (Naidu et al., 2023; Scheirich et al., 2023), and Beta (β), the momentum transfer enhancement parameter, was reported to be 3.6 (Cheng et al., 2023). Subsequent studies examined the details of DART’s impact site, modeled the impact event, investigated the ejecta produced, and analyzed the dynamics of the Didymos system. These combined results clearly demonstrate that the project met all Level 1 mission requirements.
asteroid↗
Component-Oriented Behavior Extraction for Autonomic System Design
Rich and multifaceted domain specific specification languages like the Autonomic System Specification Language (ASSL) help to design reliable systems with self-healing capabilities. The GEAR game-based Model Checker has been used successfully to investigate properties of the ESA Exo- Mars Rover in depth. We show here how to enable GEAR s game-based verification techniques for ASSL via systematic model extraction from a behavioral subset of the language, and illustrate it on a description of the Voyager II space mission.
Bakera, Marco↗
Formal Assurance for Cognitive Architecture Based Autonomous Agent
Autonomous systems are designed and deployed in different modeling paradigms. These environments focus on specific concepts in designing the system. We focus our effort in the use of cognitive architectures to design autonomous agents to collaborate with humans to accomplish tasks in a mission. Our research focuses on introducing formal assurance methods to verify the behavior of agents designed in Soar, by translating the agent to the formal verification environment Uppaal.
Bhattacharyya, Siddhartha↗
Proof-of-Concept for Sensor Modeling in MOOSE for the Design of Autonomous Nuclear Reactor Control
Autonomous operation is essential for the deployment of microreactors and fission batteries, both in terrestrial and space applications. However, prototypes of microreactors and fission batteries do not exist yet, and even the design space has not been narrowed down conclusively, making the instrumentation and control system design difficult. For this reason, there is a need for flexible computational capabilities to create a numerical stand-in of potential microreactor and fission battery designs. The latter can be used to design and test control strategies to support autonomous operations. In this paper, we describe the initial implementation of a pluggable sensor system for the easy implementation of realistic sensor models in the multiphysics object-oriented simulation environment (MOOSE) framework. This new capability will enable MOOSE users to create a numerical stand-in of microreactors and fission batteries, ultimately allowing them to easily test new control algorithms, and instrumentation strategies for advanced systems in the design phase
22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
An innovative design for autonomous backup attitude control of the Gamma Ray Observatory
The Gamma Ray Observatory is a NASA funded three-axis stabilized spacecraft which will carry four scientific instruments to observe gamma ray phenomena. The requirement to protect the scientific mission from system failures led to the attitude control and determination system design described in this paper. The design employs nine control modes with error detection, hardware substitution, and autonomous mode switching. The system architecture evolved to eliminate cross-dependence between the primary on-board computer (OBC) and the backup control processor electronics. Cross strapping of sensors and actuators and separation of the input/output electronics ensure that a reliable set of sensors and actuators will be available for backup mode operation. The OBC software includes failure detection, hardware reconfiguration, and mode switching logic which provide the ability to autonomously transfer, upon anomaly, to a reliable backup mode. Verification of this mode transition design is done in four test programs: at the unit level, by analytical simulation, by a hybrid breadboard electronics-simulation setup, and by a flight hardware-simulation test.
Tai, F.↗
A fault tolerant design for autonomous attitude control of the DSCS-III communication satellite
The first of a new series of satellites, which will provide the principal elements in the Defense Space Communications System (DSCS), was launched on Oct. 31, 1982. This satellite, DSCS-III, is part of a system which will consist of super-high frequency communications satellites in synchronous, equatorial orbits, continuously operating in four widely separate geographic regions. The DSCS-III is designed both to maintain critical communications in the presence of an electronic jamming threat and to survive nuclear radiation exposure. The results of the present investigation are to provide a basis for the design of a spacecraft tolerant of on-board failures, survivable against external threats, and capable of performing its mission autonomously for periods as long as six months.
Matijevic, J.↗
Advanced data management design for autonomous telerobotic systems in space using spaceborne symbolic processors
The use of computers in autonomous telerobots is reaching the point where advanced distributed processing concepts and techniques are needed to support the functioning of Space Station era telerobotic systems. Three major issues that have impact on the design of data management functions in a telerobot are covered. It also presents a design concept that incorporates an intelligent systems manager (ISM) running on a spaceborne symbolic processor (SSP), to address these issues. The first issue is the support of a system-wide control architecture or control philosophy. Salient features of two candidates are presented that impose constraints on data management design. The second issue is the role of data management in terms of system integration. This referes to providing shared or coordinated data processing and storage resources to a variety of telerobotic components such as vision, mechanical sensing, real-time coordinated multiple limb and end effector control, and planning and reasoning. The third issue is hardware that supports symbolic processing in conjunction with standard data I/O and numeric processing. A SSP that currently is seen to be technologically feasible and is being developed is described and used as a baseline in the design concept.
Goforth, Andre↗
Mission Concept Design for Autonomous Space Missions using Mission-Level Modeling and Simulation
NASA’s Europa Lander mission is to search for biosignatures on Europa based on in-situ science using a lander architecture. This mission presents a set of challenges that requires a high level of autonomy on the lander system, leading to the need for a new operational paradigm that supports better collaboration and coordination between the lander and the ground operations team. M\&S is used for both designing the onboard system-level autonomy and the ground operations paradigm that allows effective and efficient collaboration and coordination between the lander and the ground operations team. In this paper, M\&S as applied to the design of new mission and operational concepts will be discussed. At its current early stage of the mission development for Europa Lander, the M\&S is used to explore different mission concepts and gain insights for design (formative) rather than to verify and validate fully designed mission concepts quantitatively (summative). Organically, we established a new approach to mission and operational concept exploration using high-fidelity modeling and simulation. M\&S has been an integral part of the approach of defining constraints and assertions, designing mission concepts, assessing (i.e., simulating them), and discovering insights, which feeds back to the definition an design steps. This organically-established approach provided important benefits to the project at its early phase of the development by enabling the project team to be able to build shared understanding of impacts from design characteristics, constraints, and their interactions on the mission performance.
Ye, Sean↗
Biomorphic architectures for autonomous Nanosat designs
Modern space tool design is the science of making a machine both massively complex while at the same time extremely robust and dependable. We propose a novel nonlinear control technique that produces capable, self-organizing, micron-scale space machines at low cost and in large numbers by parallel silicon assembly. Experiments using biomorphic architectures (with ideal space attributes) have produced a wide spectrum of survival-oriented machines that are reliably domesticated for work applications in specific environments. In particular, several one-chip satellite prototypes show interesting control properties that can be turned into numerous application-specific machines for autonomous, disposable space tasks. We believe that the real power of these architectures lies in their potential to self-assemble into larger, robust, loosely coupled structures. Assembly takes place at hierarchical space scales, with different attendant properties, allowing for inexpensive solutions to many daunting work tasks. The nature of biomorphic control, design, engineering options, and applications are discussed.
Hasslacher, Brosl↗
Design of Autonomous Medical Response Agent (AMRA) Aggregate Information Dashboard (AID)
Future astronauts in deep space missions will rely on tools and technologies empowering them to self-diagnose and self-treat medical conditions. Given communications delays and limited bandwidth in future long-duration exploration missions (LDEMs), medical decision support technologies must empower the crew to manage routine medical activities, acute medical incidents, as well as emergency medical scenarios independently from ground support.The Autonomous Medical Response Agent (AMRA) is envisioned as a digital tool enabling crew to issue medical complaints and interact with a medical decision support algorithm which develops a differential diagnosis and recommends a treatment protocol for the condition. AMRA will draw from individual crew medical history in addition to crew symptoms to more efficiently identify high-risk medical conditions. A new symptom could be indicative of a chronic condition or a normal adaptation to long-duration spaceflight, but could just as easily be indicative of an adverse vehicle condition affecting the entire crew.While real-time communication with a flight surgeon may not possible, the crew will nonetheless require a means to communicate and document both routine and emergency medical incidents to ground support. Conversely, flight surgeons and medical specialists on the ground will need to understand information such as crew vitals or responses to medical check-ups and examinations within the larger context of crew schedule, mission activities, and vehicle performance. A user interface which establishes communication protocols between an individual crew member and AMRA, as well as ground support to the crew is a significant area of research demanding input and consideration.The design of AMRA AID is intended to: a) represent routine medical activities as well as new (unplanned) medical incidents within the larger context of crew schedule and mission activities, and b) increase confidence between ground support and crew members over the course of LDEMs. Maintaining situation awareness of unplanned medical incidents between ground and crew will be a critical element within LDEMs. Two medical incidents headache and difficulty breathing are being explored within a user interface prototype which captures communications protocols between crew members and mission control, human health monitoring, vehicle or environmental monitoring, as well as crew schedule and mission activities holistically.
Yashar, M.↗
Designing an autonomous environment for mission critical operation of the EUVE satellite
Since the launch of NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) satellite in 1992, there has only been a handful of occurrences that have warranted manual intervention in the EUVE Science Operations Center (ESOC). So, in an effort to reduce costs, the current environment is being redesigned to utilize a combination of off-the-shelf packages and recently developed artificial intelligence (AI) software to automate the monitoring of the science payload and ground systems. The successful implementation of systemic automation would allow the ESOC to evolve from a seven day/week, three shift operation, to a seven day/week one shift operation. First, it was necessary to identify all areas considered mission critical. These were defined as follows: (1) The telemetry stream must be monitored autonomously and anomalies identified. (2) Duty personnel must be automatically paged and informed of the occurrence of an anomaly. (3) The 'basic' state of the ground system must be assessed. (4) Monitors should check that the systems and processes needed to continue in a 'healthy' operational mode are working at all times. (5) Network loads should be monitored to ensure that they stay within established limits. (6) Connectivity to Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) systems should be monitored as well, not just for connectivity of the network itself but also for the ability to transfer files. (7) All necessary peripheral devices should be monitored. This would include the disks, routers, tape drives, printers, tape carousel, and power supplies. (8) System daemons such as the archival daemon, the Sybase server, the payload monitoring software, and any other necessary processes should be monitored to ensure that they are operational. (9) The monitoring system needs to be redundant so that the failure of a single machine will not paralyze the monitors. (10) Notification should be done by means of looking though a table of the pager numbers for current 'on call' personnel. The software should be capable of dialing out to notify, sending email, and producing error logs. (11) The system should have knowledge of when real-time passes and tape recorder dumps will occur and should know that these passes and data transmissions are successful. Once the design criteria were established, the design team split into two groups: one that addressed the tracking, commanding, and health and safety of the science payload and another group that addressed the ground systems and communications aspects of the overall system.
Abedini, Annadiana↗
Vehicle following controller design for autonomous intelligent vehicles
A new vehicle following controller is proposed for autonomous intelligent vehicles. The proposed vehicle following controller not only provides smooth transient maneuvers for unavoidable nonzero initial conditions but also guarantees the asymptotic platoon stability without the availability of feedforward information. Furthermore, the achieved asymptotic platoon stability is shown to be robust to sensor delays and an upper bound for the allowable sensor delays is also provided in this paper.
Chien, C. C.↗