Adjustably Autonomous Multi-agent Plan Execution with an Internal Spacecraft Free-Flying Robot Prototype

We present a model-based, adjustably autonomous multiagent architecture with monitoring, planning, diagnosis, and execution elements. We discuss an internal spacecraft freeflying robot prototype controlled by an implementation of this architecture and a ground test facility used for development. In addition, we discuss a simplified environment control life support system for the spacecraft domain also controlled by an implementation of this architecture. We discuss adjustable autonomy and how it applies to this architecture and its user interface, which provides the user situation awareness of both autonomous systems and enables the user to dynamically edit the plans prior to and during execution as well as control these agents at various levels of autonomy. This interface also permits the agents to query the user or request the user to perform tasks to help achieve the commanded goals. We describe a sample scenario where these two agents and a human interact to cooperatively detect, diagnose and recover from a simulated spacecraft fault, and conclude by describing the individual components in the autonomy architecture.