Melbourne, FL, September 16, 2002 -- Interface & Control Systems (ICS) was awarded a contract with NASA-KSC to develop a system that will remotely monitor and control biological experiments located at KSC. In this first phase, ICS will use their Automated Monitor and Control System (AMACS) to control and monitor critical life support hardware located within the existing growth chamber facilities. Upon completion, the infrastructure will then be migrated to the new SERPL facility scheduled to come online early next year.

"AMACS is built upon commercial web server and Internet technologies... allowing remote access via common web browsers," said Brian Buckley, VP of Marketing for ICS. "We designed AMACS to use commercial off-the-shelf PCs to archive and monitor real-time data feeds. More importantly, intelligent, real-time alerts can be generated based on any event whether directly received from sensor data or derived from algorithms". With 24/7 reliability and full scalability requirements, AMACS was the logical tool to support the real-time remote monitoring and alert requirements for SERPL.

At the heart of AMACS, and providing the entire system with a high degree of automation, is SCL - a patented rule-based expert system developed by ICS for mission critical applications. SCL has been used on a wide variety of programs requiring advanced fault detection, isolation, and recovery technologies. AMACS will allow scientists and other authorized personnel to monitor and control experiments from virtually anywhere in the world. In addition, AMACS utilizes SmartAlerts technology that will provide an automated real-time web-based notification system. Once registered, users can subscribe to receive a variety of alerts - from document updates to mission-critical fault conditions.  For example, a scientist may want to receive an alert whenever a particular sensor rises above a pre-defined limit. AMACS will sense the out-of-limits condition and immediately issue an alert to the preferred device - pager, fax, cellphone, or PC. The system can then fix the problem or allow the user to issue the appropriate commands remotely.

Recent breakthroughs concerning soybean experiments on the International Space Station have  far-reaching applications (see Florida Today, 9/16/2002, page 1A). "The more effective we can be in providing reliable data to these scientists down here, the greater likelihood of having successful applications when in a mission-critical environment," commented Ron DuBois, lead engineer for ICS. Scientists agree that plant growth is an essential ingredient in long-term space travel.