2000 NASA STTR Phase-I Proposal
Proposal #: 000118

1. Research Topic: 01 - Information Technology
2. Project Title: Intelligent Control For Autonomous Remote Spacecraft

3. Small Business Concern                       4. Principal Investigator
   Name:      Accurate Automation Corporation      Name: Dr. James C. Neidhoefer
   Address:   7001 Shallowford Road
   City:      Chattanooga
   ST:        TN Zip: 37421

5. Research Institution
   Name:      University of Alabama
   Address:   P.O. Box 870104,G60 Rose Admin.
   City:      Tuscaloosa
   ST:        AL Zip: 35487

6. Technical Abstract (Limit 200 words)

We will apply the latest knowledge in learning control, adaptive control, and optimal control to develop a modular, state-of-the-art, adaptive, nonlinear, guidance, navigation, and control package for remote spacecraft. The system will incorporate planning and decision making modules to give the remote spacecraft on-line goal directed self-reliant behavior with a high degree of autonomy. At the highest level, an expert system based "Goal Executive" will monitor the spacecraft's environment and switch and/or adapt the performance indices of an adaptive critic based guidance system, and an evolutionary algorithm based navigation system. This will, in effect, change the near-term behavior of the remote spacecraft by changing what it considers "optimal". The navigation system will specify optimal way-points for achieving the specified mission goals. The guidance module will generate an optimal trajectory between the way-points and the control module will ensure robust and accurate trajectory tracking. The controller will be based on an improved version of an nth order multi-variate Neural Adaptive Controller (NACTM) developed at AAC.

7. Potential Commercial Application(s)(Limit 200 words)

In the near term, we anticipate a modular, portable, autonomous Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) software package to be the primary commercialization. There is a tremendous need for such a package in industries that apply advanced control technologies, especially the aerospace industry. Our software will fill a gap in the GN&C development software market. Currently, there are no easy-to-use tools that are highly general and powerful. The most powerful tools available require the user to select many parameters, usually iteratively, until an adequate solution is reached. We will investigate licensing the software to a software company. In this way, we can benefit from royalties without having to build a general support infrastructure. At the same time, we can continue to sell the product to specific customers and support them through individual agreement.