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SCL
Chosen For Techsat-21 End-To-End System Columbia, Md., April 1, 2001 --
Interface & Control Systems (ICS) announced today that they will
provide to Techsat-21 an end-to-end integrated flight and ground system to
support messaging, command & control, fault detection, isolation, and
recovery. ICS’s flagship product, SCL, will provide a
Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solution for executive command and control
functions for the Techsat-21 mission. SCL integrates procedural
programming with a real-time, automated, rule-based inference engine. The
system was designed to operate both on-board a satellite and in the
ground station. This combination makes SCL an ideal environment for
developing a prototype, which contains the cluster commanding capability
required for Techsat-21. Users will be able to define scripts in an English-like
manner. Compiled on the ground, those scripts can be dynamically loaded
onboard and executed at an absolute or delta time. Those scripts can also
be scheduled autonomously by CASPER, the JPL onboard planner. Another significant enhancement to the system is the SCL/Livingstone
integration. Livingstone (L2) is a model-based diagnostic and control
system provided by NASA Ames that flew on NASA’s Deep Space One (DS1)
mission. The L2 component will be used to model the behavior of autonomous
agents such as CASPER, Object Agent cluster management, and even SCL. When
deviations from expected behavior are detected, fault recovery scripts can
then be executed autonomously onboard the satellite using SCL. ICS is also providing a graphical ground environment to
assist in the development of the scripts, commands, rules, and even
modeling of state transitions using their UML-based ScriptBuilder tool.
Fault trees can be easily created to support the fault management
function. Scripts and rules are automatically generated, along with
accurate documentation. All the information is then encoded in Spacecraft
Markup Language (SML), a recognized extension of XML (specifically
designed for aerospace), to allow for rapid data interchange and
publication across the World Wide Web. ICS is a Product Development and Engineering Services Company
specializing in the development of real-time, embedded, and autonomous
command and control software systems. Services include software systems
engineering, integration and test, intelligent e-Business solutions, and
project and software life cycle management. ICS is a privately held
company with main offices in Columbia, MD, and Melbourne, FL. - end - Contact information:
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