MONSID Projects and Applications

MONSID uncovered surprise behaviors, unanticipated interactions between controller and planner, real faults, terrain-induced stalls, motor stalls, hidden/masked faults that would have fooled a traditional monitor.

Okean Solutions supported the three-year JPL Self Reliant Rover strategic initiative to develop and demonstrate autonomy-enabling technologies for Mars rovers. MONSID models of a rover power and mobility subsystems were created and tested with Mars Science Lab telemetry data as well as on the Athena test rover operating in JPL’s Mars Yard. MONSID was able to detect and identify seeded hardware faults as well as expose actual, in-situ software and operational errors. This effort marked the first time that MONSID was successfully tested with real hardware data.

Papers

• Model-Based Approach to Rover Health Assessment - Mars Yard Discoveries
• Self-reliant rovers for increased mission productivity

Here's a video the CAST team posted of a recent demo where MONSID was utilized to help them determine when a problem was encountered. MONSID software is showcased in the top 2 charts.

For this demo, the satellite was supposed to adjust orientation around the asteroid (the spud-looking thing on the wall) using its reaction wheels. About 20 seconds into the demo, one of the wheels failed. MONSID detected the failure (the blue line spikes in the top chart) and the information was used by the planner (provided by JPL) to effectively update the plans (and hence switch to other controlling hardware) to allow completion of the originally desired task.

Okean Solutions culminated a 2-year SBIR Phase II project with the Air Force Research Laboratory for a high-fidelity prototype demonstration of a system that clearly shows how the MONSID® model-based fault management system can be used effectively on Space Superiority missions.

Okean Solutions was awarded the Phase II contract, following a successful Phase I contract, under Topic AF131-092 On-Board Autonomy for Decreased Satellite Response Time.

This topic seeks to develop and demonstrate technologies for embedded satellite autonomy and cited model-based and constraint-based detection systems as examples of the types of technologies that were of interest. The goal is to improve the capability of space assets to respond to real-time events, including faults.

This was a 6-month SBIR Phase I project with Kennedy Space Center that included early technical development to determine the feasibility of the innovation.

The topic covers Autonomous Operations Technologies (AOT) that support activities performed by rocket engine test facilities, propellant servicing systems, processing and launch of vehicles and payloads, and for extended surface operations on the Moon and Mars. AOT performs functions such as systems and components’ fault prediction and diagnostics, anomaly detection, fault detection and isolation, and enables various levels of autonomous control and recovery from faults, where recovery may include system repair and/or reconfiguration.