DEVELOPMENT OF A REAL-TIME EXTRAVEHICULAR MOBILITY UNIT TELEMETRY MONITORING EXPERT-SYSTEM

The objective of this study is to develop a real time expert system to assist ground controllers with the task of monitory telemetry associa ted with NASA's Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU). During Extravehicu lar Activity (EVA), ground controllers closely monitor this telemetry and respond to anomalous performance should it occur The system is cap able of automatically evaluating system performance and providing cont ext sensitive assistance if requested by the use,: The system includes the following modules: expert system module, database module, EMU sim ulator module, display and computation module, and user interface modu le. The system was developed under the Visual BASIC and EXSYS Professi onal environments. The system enhances monitoring capabilities by util izing the preflight performance data collected on each EMU, examining trends in certain parameters, and consistently monitoring each set of incoming telemetry. Human experts have examined simulated EMU telemetr y containing abnormal performance indications both with and without th e system. The resulting comments and opinions received, combined with measurements of their performance, provide insight into the overall sy stem performance and usability.