NASA SBIR 00-1 SOLICITATION

FORM 9B - PROJECT SUMMARY

PROPOSAL NUMBER 00-1 15.06-8529 (Chron: 001472 )
PROJECT TITLE
Performance & Cooperation Among Multiple Autonomous Space-based Agents

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Autonomous planning of space-based unmanned craft is at the cutting edge of science and technology. Problems associated with planning arise when multiple independent agents each on separate spacecraft must work in a coordinated fashion for a combined mission. This proposal examines the ramifications of cooperating and independent autonomous agents controlling unmanned craft toward a common cause. In particular, the "health" of an individual agent as evidenced by state variables are not domain specific; health should be added to the representation of state of the agent which can be communicated to others agents so that they may infer the ability of that agent to carry out its tasks. This information is also used in the scheduling and planning of the remainder of the agents who can plan for an agent to go offline if its state indicates this is a possibility. Collaborating agents are also likely to make mistakes. Pattern analysis can be used to learn from past plan deviations to avoid those situations that are likely to cause failure. Finally having additional information about the state of the software is useful in determining why an agent failed if the actual satellite cannot be recovered in a timely manner.

POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS
We plan to market this technology to software developers who write
internet aware software to allow them to get real-time bug reports on
their fielded software to improve the quality of their products. This
improves the value of their software and allows them to get the quality
that we expect of other commercial products into software.

This technology can also be used to debug running software in real-time.
As a result we will market this as development tool for agent based design.

Finally this software will be able to predict in advance plan deviations
in scheduling and planning software. We are exploring this as a potential
market for this technology.

NAME AND ADDRESS OF PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR (Name, Organization Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip)
Darrin Taylor
21st Century Technologies Inc.
8716 North Mopac Expressway Suite 310
Austin , TX 78759 - 0001

NAME AND ADDRESS OF OFFEROR (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip)
21st Century Technologies Inc.
8716 North Mopac Expressway Suite 310
Austin , TX 78759 - 0001