Design of a multi-agent system for cost reduction in multi-craft space missions
Oct 12, 2009
Stuart Grey and Gianmarco Radice and Massimiliano Vasile and Joris Fuchs and Quirijn Wisjnands
60th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2009), Daejeon, Republic of Korea, 12–16 Oct 2009, pp. 7072–7078
ISBN: 978-1-61567-908-9
An approach for reducing the costs of multi-craft space missions using multiple autonomous agents is presented in this paper. The approach hinges on replacing the ground and space based control systems with an integrated multi-agent system (MAS) comprised of specialised autonomous agents. We describe in particular how this design is applied to ESA's DARWIN exo-planet telescope mission and define the structure of the MAS. The scheme shows potential for improvement over a traditional control system design in a number of areas, most notably in the reliability of the spacecraft in unexpected scenarios, significantly lower ground control requirements and much easier re-use of individual agents in other missions, all leading to the possibility of reduced operational costs for the mission.