Multi-agent diagnosis and control of an air revitalization system for life support in space

An architecture of inter-operating agents has been developed to provide control and fault management for advanced life support systems in space. In this multi-agent architecture, cooperating autonomous software agents coordinate with human agents, to provide support in novel fault management situations. This architecture combines the Livingstone model-based mode identification and reconfiguration (MIR) system with elements of the 3T architecture for autonomous flexible command and control. The MIR software agent performs model-based state identification and fault diagnosis. MIR also identifies novel recovery configurations and the set of commands required to accomplish the recovery. The 3T procedural executive and the human operator use the diagnoses and recovery recommendations, and provide command sequencing. Human interface extensions have been developed to support human monitoring and control of both 3T and MIR data and activities. This architecture has been exercised for control and fault management of an oxygen production system for air revitalization in space. The software operates in a dynamic simulation testbed.