Automated Learning for Real-Time Expert System in Monitoring and Control

Description
Interface & Control Systems, Inc. (ICS) of Melbourne, Florida, was founded in 1988 as a product development and engineering services firm specializing in real-time, embedded and autonomous command and control software systems. ICS was awarded an STTR through NASA (KSC) to develop a system that would automate the detection of mechanical failures in the Marrotta fuel control valves used in the space shuttle main engines. This 2002 STTR combines two cross-cutting technologies: Florida Institute of Technology’s (FIT) Adaptive Machine Learning algorithms (AML) and ICS’s SCL, a Rule-Based Expert System.

Value back to NASA
The use of Adaptive Machine Learning (AML) techniques has proven that NASA can populate the SCL Rule-Based Expert System with monitor and control rules for a Space Shuttle Main Engine data stream. This approach keeps the human in the loop but with significant savings in manpower. Previously unrecognized relationships between sensor data points can be discovered automatically. The SensorMiner tools allow analysis in real-time, post-test, and post-flight.

Commercial Benefits
Partnering with leading researchers in the field of data mining (Dr. Philip Chan and Dr. Matt Mahoney of Florida Tech) ICS developed a time-series data mining tool called SensorMiner. The SensorMiner toolset is a commercially available product that learns and generalizes current traces, formulates a concise model of the know good data signatures, applies the generated model to on-line, real-time data, detects on line (real-time) anomalies and/or deviations from the model and reports anomalies to the operator with explicit information as to where the signal deviated and exactly what constraints were violated. ICS hopes to penetrate existing Control System and Test Set markets that require more sophisticated real-time anomaly detection and analysis.

Partnership Contributions
Interface & Control System’s mission is to provide the essential products and services necessary to support intelligent, automated, mission-critical applications in the Aerospace, Intelligence, and e-Commerce industries. ICS has provided Systems Engineering, Development and Fielding of large scale systems.  ICS also provides product, training, and engineering services to a wide variety of customers like Lockheed Martin, The Aerospace Corporation, Air Force Research Lab, Johns Hopkins University and Applied Physics Lab, Naval Research Laboratory, Aerojet, GE-Harris and the Army. These companies have relied on SCL as the core component of mission critical systems that include: Control Centers, Embedded (flight and ground), Test Sets and GSE, Tactical Intelligence, Fault Detection and Recovery, Simulations, e-Commerce.

IPP Role
Jim Van Gaasbeck and Brian Buckley, founders of Interface & Control Systems of Indialantic, applied for and were awarded a Phase II STTR contract through Kennedy Space Center’s SBIR/STTR Program to address the need for a system that would automate the detection of mechanical failures in the Marrotta fuel control valves used in the space shuttle main engines. These programs are managed by NASA’s Chuck Griffin and supported by ASRC Aerospace’s Project Specialist, Jennifer Van Pelt.

IPP Contact
Jennifer Van Pelt
ASRC Aerospace Inc.
YA-C1
Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899
321/867-6374
Jennifer.vanpelt-1@ksc.nasa.gov

Industry Contact
Brian Buckley
Interface & Control Systems, Inc.
122 Fourth Avenue
Indialantic, FL 32903
321/723-0399
buckley@interfacecontrol.com

Other References, Sources
Interface & Control Systems, Inc.
info@interfacecontrol.com