Analysis of Phased-Mission System Reliability and Importance with Imperfect Coverage

Accounting for static phased-mission systems (PMS) and imperfect coverage (IPC), generalized and integrated algorithm (GPMS-CPR) implemented a synthesis of several approaches into a single methodology whose advantages were in the low computational complexity, broad applicability, and easy implementation. The approach is extended into analysis of each phase in the whole mission. Based on Fussell-Vesely importance measure, a simple and efficient importance measure is presented to analyze component’s importance of phased-mission systems considering imperfect coverage.

Reliability Modeling of Phased Mission System with Phase Backup by Stochastic Petri Net

This paper presents a modeling method by stochastic Petri net for reliability analysis of phased mission system( PMS) with phase backup. The model consisting of petri nets,depicts the system behaviors of unit level,system logic level and phase level. Guard functions of petri nets are used to avoid modeling complexity and make the model flexible to different reliability logical structures. It was shown that the time redundancy within phase and from phase backup for PMS can both be described by use of the proposed model.

Reliability simulation and analysis of phased-mission system with multiple states

Basing on discrete event simulation, a reliability simulation algorithm of the phased-mission system with multiple states is put forth. Firstly, the concepts and main characters of phasedmission system are discussed, and an active and standby redundancy (AS) tree structure method to describe the system structure of each mission phase is brought forward. Secondly, the behavior of the phased-mission system with multiple states is discussed with the theory of state chart. Thirdly, basing on the discrete event simulation concept, a simulation algorithm to estimate reliability parameters of the phased-mission system with multiple states is explored. Finally, an example is introduced and analyzed, and the analysis result verifies the algorithms. The simulation algorithm is practical and versatile, for it can model complex behavior of phased-mission system flexibly, and more reliability parameters to understand system operation can be attained.

Life Origin in the Milky Way Galaxy: II. Scanning for Habitable Stellar Systems on Behalf of Future Space Missions

The possibility of the life origin in the stellar systems, located at a distance of ~200 pc from the solar system, was investigated. The stars, in the spectrums of which C (carbon), O (oxygen), N (nitrogen), and P (phosphorus) are found, are called DNA-stars. Based on stellar abundances a new method for searching for habitable exoplanets has been developed and a list of 48 DNA-stars in the solar neighborhood, on which life is possible, has been defined. The quota of DNA-stars is equal 1.3% of the total amount of Hypatia Stellar Catalog. Only three DNA-stars out of selected 48 stars belong to the spectral class as our Sun (G2V). The closest to the solar system is the DNA-star with the number HIP 15510, which belongs to the G8V class and is 6 pc away from the solar system. Nine DNA-stars, which have the highest chemical similarity with solar spectrum, were identified. It is identified that one of these nine stars, HIP 24681, has six planets.

Global Mission Sensitivity Study for Phased MissionSystem with Analysis of Variance Method

A comprehensive mission sensitivity analysis index based on Sobol's index called global mission sensitivity( GMS) was proposed in this paper which focused on analyzing the mission sensitivity of components of phased mission systems( PMS). The simulation strategy of GMS based on a Petri net and Monte Carlo method was presented which had broad applicability. Finally,the GMS and Birnbaum's sensitivity of components in a PMS example were compared. The GMS of component is demonstrated to be more adaptable to reflect the component mission sensitivity when the rated reliability parameters of components cannot be obtained, and components have state dependency or the system is subjected to common cause failure.

Approximate Method for Reliability Assessment of Complex Phased Mission Systems

Phased-mission systems (PMSs) have wide applications in engineering practices, such as manmade satellites. Certain critical parts in the system, such as cold standby, hot standby and functional standby, are designed in redundancy architecture to achieve high reliability performance. State-space models such as Markov process have been used extensively in previous studies for reliability evaluation of PMSs with dynamic behaviors. The most popular way to deal with the dynamic behaviors is Markov process, but it is well known that Markov process is limited to exponential distribution. In practice, however, the lifetime of most machinery products can follow non-exponential distributions like the Weibull distribution which cannot be handled by the Markov process. In order to solve this kind of problem, we present a semi-Markov model combined with an approximation algorithm to analyze PMS reliability subjected to non-exponential failures. Furthermore, the accuracy of the approximation algorithm is investigated by comparing to an accurate solution, and a typical PMS (attitude and orbit control system) is analyzed to demonstrate the implementation of the method. © 2017, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Simplified Markov Model for Reliability Analysis of Phased-Mission System Using States Merging Method

This paper presents a simplified Markov model to evaluate the reliability of phased-mission system(PMS). The time cost and storage requirement are very huge for traditional Markov model to analyze the PMS reliability as the number of components increases to a large scale. The states merging method proposed in this paper can account for the PMS with subsystems consisting of identical components, and similar PMSs are common in real-world systems. The simplified Markov model by states merging has smaller number of system states, compared with the traditional one. Furthermore, for the above subsystems, the size of our model increases only linearly as the number of components increases, while the size of the traditional model exponentially increases.Finally, the effectiveness and correctness of our approach are analyzed by comparing with the traditional Markov method.

ADC-GERT network parameter estimation model for mission effectiveness of joint operation system

Effectiveness evaluation of the joint operation system is an important basis for the demonstration and development of weapon equipment.With the consideration that existing models of system effectiveness evaluation seldom describe the structural relationship among equipment clearly as well as reflect the dynamic,the analog-to-digital converter-graphical evaluation and review technique(ADC-GERT)network parameter estimation model is proposed based on the ADC model and the joint operation system structure.Firstly,analysis of the joint operation system structure and operation process is conducted to build the GERT network,where equipment subsystems are nodes and activities are directed arches.Then the mission effectiveness of equipment subsystems is calculated by the ADC model.The probability transfer parameters are modified by the mission effectiveness of equipment subsystems based on the Bayesian theorem,with the ADC-GERT network parameter estimation model constructed.Finally,a case study is used to validate the efficiency and dynamic of the ADC-GERT network parameter estimation model.

Mission reliability modeling and evaluation for reconfigurable unmanned weapon system-of-systems based on effective operation loop

The concept of unmanned weapon system-of-systems(UWSoS)involves a collection of various unmanned systems to achieve or accomplish a specific goal or mission.The mission reliability of UWSoS is represented by its ability to finish a required mission above the baselines of a given mission.However,issues with heterogeneity,cooperation between systems,and the emergence of UWSoS cannot be effectively solved by traditional system reliability methods.This study proposes an effective operation-loop-based mission reliability evaluation method for UWSoS by analyzing dynamic reconfiguration.First,we present a new connotation of an effective operation loop by considering the allocation of operational entities and physical resource constraints.Then,we propose an effective operationloop-based mission reliability model for a heterogeneous UWSoS according to the mission baseline.Moreover,a mission reliability evaluation algorithm is proposed under random external shocks and topology reconfiguration,revealing the evolution law of the effective operation loop and mission reliability.Finally,a typical 60-unmanned-aerial-vehicle-swarm is taken as an example to demonstrate the proposed models and methods.The mission reliability is achieved by considering external shocks,which can serve as a reference for evaluating and improving the effectiveness of UWSoS.

Timeline based autonomous mission planning system for deep space exploration

In order to realize the explorer autonomy, the software architecture of autonomous mission management system (AMMS) is given for the deep space explorer, and the autonomous mission planning system, the kernel part of this architecture, is designed in detail. In order to describe the parallel activity, the state timeline is introduced to build the formal model of the planning system and based on this model, the temporal constraint satisfaction planning algorithm is proposed to produce the explorer’s activity sequence. With some key subsystems of the deep space explorer as examples, the autonomous mission planning simulation system is designed. The results show that this system can calculate the executable activity sequence with the given mission goals and initial state of the explorer.

Computational mission analysis and conceptual system design for super low altitude satellite

This paper deals with system engineering and design methodology for super low altitude satel ites in the view of the com-putational mission analysis. Due to the slight advance of imaging instruments, such as the focus of camera and the image element of charge coupled device （CCD）, it is an innovative and economical way to improve the camera’s resolution to enforce the satel ite to fly on the lower altitude orbit. DFH-3, the mature satel ite bus de-veloped by Chinese Academy of Space Technology, is employed to define the mass and power budgets for the computational mis-sion analysis and the detailed engineering design for super low altitude satel ites. An effective iterative algorithm is proposed to solve the ergodic representation of feasible mass and power bud-gets at the flight altitude under constraints. Besides, boundaries of mass or power exist for every altitude, where the upper boundary is derived from the maximum power, while the minimum thrust force holds the lower boundary before the power reaching the initial value. What’s more, an analytical algorithm is employed to numerical y investigate the coverage percentage over the altitude, so that the nominal altitude could be selected from al the feasi-ble altitudes based on both the mass and power budgets and the repetitive ground traces. The local time at the descending node is chosen for the nominal sun-synchronous orbit based on the average evaluation function. After determining the key orbital ele-ments based on the computational mission analysis, the detailed engineering design on the configuration and other subsystems, like power, telemetry telecontrol and communication （TT＆amp;C）, and attitude determination and control system （ADCS）, is performed based on the benchmark bus, besides, some improvements to the bus are also implemented to accommodate the flight at a super low altitude. Two operation strategies, drag-free closed-loop mode and on/off open-loop mode, are presented to maintain the satel-lite’s altitude. Final y, a flight planning schedule for the satel ite is demonstrated from its launch into the initial altitude at the very beginning to its decay to death in the end.

Fast solution to the free return orbit's reachable domain of the manned lunar mission by deep neural network

It is important to calculate the reachable domain(RD)of the manned lunar mission to evaluate whether a lunar landing site could be reached by the spacecraft. In this paper, the RD of free return orbits is quickly evaluated and calculated via the classification and regression neural networks. An efficient databasegeneration method is developed for obtaining eight types of free return orbits and then the RD is defined by the orbit’s inclination and right ascension of ascending node(RAAN) at the perilune. A classify neural network and a regression network are trained respectively. The former is built for classifying the type of the RD, and the latter is built for calculating the inclination and RAAN of the RD. The simulation results show that two neural networks are well trained. The classification model has an accuracy of more than 99% and the mean square error of the regression model is less than 0.01°on the test set. Moreover, a serial strategy is proposed to combine the two surrogate models and a recognition tool is built to evaluate whether a lunar site could be reached. The proposed deep learning method shows the superiority in computation efficiency compared with the traditional double two-body model.

Case Analysis for USV Integrated Mission Planning System

Advanced countries around the world are spurring the development of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) that can operate autonomously at marine environment. The key enabling technology for such USVs is the mission planning system (MPS) that can autonomously navigate through the harsh waters. The MPS not only has the functions for the navigation, but also has the capabilities, such as obstacle avoidance, malfunction corrections, dealing with unexpected events, return home functions, and many other eventualities that cannot be programmed in advance. The autonomy levels are increasingly moving higher and it is foreseeable that the trend will continue in the future. The main purpose of this paper is the analysis of the MPS onboard the USVs, in terms of the categories, functions, and technological details. Also, we analyze the case study of autonomous mission planning control systems in various fields and introduce the features that constitute the critical functionalities of the mission planning systems.

Remote Operation SW for USV: Part I. Integrated Mission Planning System

The integrated Mission Planning System?(MPS) of Unmanned Surface Vehicle?(USV) refers to the process which can recognize, decide, plan situations and carry out missions, such as human beings, for all incidental or complex events occurring at sea. In the actual operating environment, it is necessary to develop a simulation software environment and analyze, verify it in advance so as to make an appropriate mission plan considering equipment, sensor, fuel, and other available resources. The existing USV mission planning process methodology has several limitations in the analysis of USV missions because the scenario to be tested is limited and autonomy of USV is not considered sufficiently. To overcome these problems, we constructed a process that considers various missions and is more autonomous, and an integrated environment in which to experiment. In this study, we designed a multi-agent based USV Integrated Mission Planning System and modeled each component. In addition, we constructed the USV remote operation S/W based on M&S that user can experiment with the modeled process and verified the usefulness of the developed system through simulations.

Coordinated dynamic mission planning scheme for intelligent multi-agent systems

Mission planning was thoroughly studied in the areas of multiple intelligent agent systems,such as multiple unmanned air vehicles,and multiple processor systems.However,it still faces challenges due to the system complexity,the execution order constraints,and the dynamic environment uncertainty.To address it,a coordinated dynamic mission planning scheme is proposed utilizing the method of the weighted AND/OR tree and the AOE-Network.In the scheme,the mission is decomposed into a time-constraint weighted AND/OR tree,which is converted into an AOE-Network for mission planning.Then,a dynamic planning algorithm is designed which uses task subcontracting and dynamic re-decomposition to coordinate conflicts.The scheme can reduce the task complexity and its execution time by implementing real-time dynamic re-planning.The simulation proves the effectiveness of this approach.

A Full Mission Simulator of the Ship＇s Automated Electric Power System for Training and Competence Testing of Marine Engineers

This article describes practical preparation of marine engineers on the full mission simulator complex of the ship＇s automated electrical power plant. A full mission simulator complex of the ship＇s automated power management system meets International Convention STCW （Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping） 78 （with Manila amendments 2010） requirements in part of adequate reproduction of its operational modes corresponding to the actual configuration and layout of the ship＇s automated power management system with real consumers and typical loads. The simulator is fully consistent with the goals and objectives of the practical training, as well as the goals and objectives of proficiency testing engine department officers on issues of technical maintenance of real ship＇s equipment （high voltage installations included） and means of automation. The simulator＇s complex is designed for training and proficiency testing of cadets and students of maritime educational institutions, as well as training and proficiency testing of marine specialists （mechanics and electricians） by watch-keeping and maintenance of modem integrated automated control systems of ship＇s electric power plant and the individual ship electromechanical systems, including high-voltage systems. A simulator＇s complex provides adequate reproduction of operational situations on technical side of real ship electric and automation equipment provides training on monitoring, control and management diesel-generator sets in hand, semi-automatic and automatic modes of power station, control and management of electromechanical systems, as well as the set of tasks upon parameterization, visualization and etc. Besides number of combinations of monitoring, control and management tasks, the simulator＇s complex provides an opportunity to simulate various practical fault conditions. It allows students to focus on the work of automatic control system in emergency situations and to work out correct actions for a watch-keeper on searching, localizing of faults and troubleshooting of equipment.

A Planning Method for Operational Test of UAV Swarm Based on Mission Reliability

The unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)swarm plays an increasingly important role in the modern battlefield,and the UAV swarm operational test is a vital means to validate the combat effectiveness of the UAV swarm.Due to the high cost and long duration of operational tests,it is essential to plan the test in advance.To solve the problem of planning UAV swarm operational test,this study considers the multi-stage feature of a UAV swarm mission,composed of launch,flight and combat stages,and proposes a method to find test plans that can maximize mission reliability.Therefore,a multi-stage mission reliability model for a UAV swarm is proposed to ensure successful implementation of the mission.A multi-objective integer optimization method that considers both mission reliability and cost is then formulated to obtain the optimal test plans.This study first constructs a mission reliability model for the UAV swarm in the combat stage.Then,the launch stage and flight stage are integrated to develop a complete PMS(Phased Mission Systems)reliability model.Finally,the Binary Decision Diagrams(BDD)and Multi Objective Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization(MOQPSO)methods are proposed to solve the model.The optimal plans considering both reliability and cost are obtained.The proposed model supports the planning of UAV swarm operational tests and represents a meaningful exploration of UAV swarm test planning.

Ecosystem services potential and soil conservation policies with emphasis on degraded pastures in Brazil

Different global agendas have discussed the role of soils in mitigating and reducing global problems related to climate change,food security,biodiversity and erosion,among others.With this in mind,the aim was to draw up an overview of the main soil agendas in Europe and Brazil,analysing their impact on the establishment of legal frameworks for soil use and conservation.In Brazil,pastures are seen as an important alternative for converting degraded areas into ecosystem services.To this end,a literature review was carried out using databases on the Scopus,Web of Science,Science Direct and Scielo platforms,as well as consulting documents from the European Union Missions in Horizon Europe and Brazilian legislation on the subject.In a pilot river basin,the Potential for Conservation Use(PCU)method was applied,which is used in Brazil to assess the impacts of different uses on the natural capital of soils,serving as a metric to guide public soil conservation policies.It was concluded that,on the European scene,discussions on soils have taken place in an integrated and organised way,with actions to mobilise different players in society.In Brazil,even though there are important legal frameworks,actions are still restricted and disjointed,pointing to the need for progress in soil governance.In both scenarios,there is a need for scientifically validated metrics at regional scales that can contribute to a harmonised database capable of subsidising the development of efficient public policies to advance soil conservation at a global level.

Strategic Study on the Development of Space Science in China and Proposals for Future Missions

Since 2011,the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS)has implemented the Strategic Priority Program on Space Science(SPP).A series of scientific satellites have been developed and launched,such as Dark Matter Particle Explorer(DAMPE),Quantum Experiments at Space Scale(QUESS),Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory(ASO-S),Einstein Probe(EP),and significant scientific outcomes have been achieved.In order to plan the future space science missions in China,CAS has organized the Chinese space science community to conduct medium and long-term development strategy studies,and summarized the major scientific frontiers of space science as“One Black,Two Dark,Three Origins and Five Characterizations”.Five main scientific themes have been identified for China’s future breakthroughs,including the Extreme Universe,Space-Time Ripples,the Panoramic View of the Sun and Earth,the Habitable Planets,and Biological&Physical Science in Space.Space science satellite missions to be implemented before 2030 are proposed accordingly.

“Einstein Probe”Mission Holds New Promise in Time-domain Astronomy

Einstein Probe,an astronomical satellite designed for X-ray observation on astronomical events drastically evolving over time,was successfully sent into preset orbit by a Long March 2C rocket from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center located in Sichuan Province at 15:03 GMT+8 on January 9,2024.