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ai workshop

The IJCAI-09 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Space

The Advanced Concepts Team of ESA and the
Artificial Intelligence Group of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab organized a workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Space at IJCAI-09 in Pasadena, California, on July 17-18, 2009. The IJCAI is the largest AI conference in the world.
Organizing Commitee

S. Chien, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
C. Ampatzis, European Space Agency, ESTEC
M. Rucinski, European Space Agency, ESTEC
D. Izzo, European Space Agency, ESTEC

Workshop Rationale

Intelligent machines, programs, or agents, are systems that adapt, learn or perceive their environment and take actions which maximize their chances of success. The design of intelligent systems for operation in known and predictable environments or under a well-defined set of conditions is a demanding task that has been widely addressed in the past decades. However, existing machine intelligence has not been extensively tried and tested in highly unpredictable and hazardous environments, as space. Arguably, successful operation in space is a far more challenging endeavour than operation in, e.g., controlled robotic arenas. Similarly, space applications may need novel programming paradigms, far more flexible and adaptive than conventional computing.

Two key words in our quest for designing artificially intelligent entities are autonomy and adaptivity. Spacecrafts, satellites, rovers and other machines need to be able to autonomously make decisions, to quickly process and categorise vast amounts of incoming data, monitor their health status, detect and self-heal faults. Machines need to learn to adapt fast to growing user demands, to interact in more complex ways with other machines and humans, and new algorithms need to emerge to tackle the complexity of real-world problems. The research field of Artificial Intelligence with its many flavours can significantly contribute to this goal. From solutions inspired by the behaviour of social animals, to imitating how the human brain functions during decision-making; from robust optimisation algorithms to natural language interfaces for human-computer interactions; from efficient control algorithms to data mining and knowledge discovery, advances in AI research can be applied to space related problems.

For more information on the workshop, visit the workshop website: http://www.congrex.nl/09c17/
Workshop Programme (papers available)
Day 1 - 17 July 2009
09:00-09:15
Welcome
Steve Chien - Christos Ampatzis
09:15-10:00
Keynote #1
Artificial Intelligence in Space Robotics at ESA
Gianfranco Visentin
10:00-10:30
Coffee break
10:30-12:00
 Session #1 - Autonomous Decision-making and Control
  • Cooperative Control of a Multi-tier Multi-agent Robotic System for Planetary Exploration
    Y. Gao and P. Isarabhakdee (article in pdf)
  • Hybrid Strategic-tactic Approach for Emergent Behavior Construction
    J. Varas and F.J. Busto
  • Common-sense Support for Autonomous and Robust Decision Making
    L. Daniel and V. Roy and J. Marmorat (article in pdf)
  • A Framework for Developing AI for Autonomous Satellite Operations
    J. Anderson (article in pdf)
    		•
    12:00-14:00
    Lunch break
    14:00-15:00
    		 Session #2 - Autonomous Decision-making and Control
    1. Onboard Clustering of Aerial Data for Improved Science Return
      D. Hayden, S. Chien and R. Castano (article in pdf)
    2. Curiosity Cloning: Neural Modelling for Exploration
      D. Izzo and C. Ampatzis and M. Rucinski (article in pdf)
    3. An Active Vision System for Navigating Unknown Environments: An Evolutionary Robotics Approach
      D. Marocco and M. Peniak and A. Cangelosi (article in pdf)
    15:00-15:30
    Coffee break
    15:30-17:00
    		 Session #3 - Planning & Scheduling
    1. APSI - MrSpock-Aims-for-Xmas
      R. Steel, M. Niezette, A. Cesta, S. Fratini, A. Oddi, G. Cortellesssa, R. Rasconi, G. Verfaillie, C. Pralet, M. Lavagna, A. Brambilla, F. Castellini, A. Donati and N. Policella (article in pdf)
    2. MUSE: a Multi-User Scheduling Environment for Multi-objective Scheduling of Space Science Missions
      M. Johnston and M. Giuliano (article in pdf)
    3. Using Intelligent Agents to Support Deep Space Scheduling
      P. Bonasso and D. Schreckenghost (article in pdf)
    4. On-board Plan Modification for Opportunistic Science
      D. Long, M. Wood, A. Shaw, D. Pullen, A. Barnes and D. Price (article in pdf)

    Day 2 - 18 July 2009
    09:15-10:00
    Keynote #2
    Autonomous Targeting of Remote Sensing Instruments for the MER Rovers
    Tara Estlin
    10:00-10:30
    Coffee break
    10:30-12:00
    		 Session #4 - Data Analysis
    1. Adaptive Subsampling of Image Sequences for Remote Exploration
      D. Thompson, D. Wettergreen and R. Castano (article in pdf)
    2. Onboard Classification of Hyperspectral Data on the Earth Observing One Mission
      S. Chien, D. Tran, S. Schaffer, G. Rabideau, A. Gerard Davies, T. Doggett, R. Greeley, F. Ip, V. Baker, J. Doubleday, R. Castano, D. Mandl, S. Frye, L. Ong, F. Rogez, B. Oaida (article in pdf)
    3. Hyperspectral Sulfur Detection Using an SVM with Extreme Minority Positive Examples Onboard EO-1
      L. Mandrake, K. Wagstaff, D. Gleeson, U. Rebbapragada, D. Tran, R. Castano, S. Chien and R. Pappalardo (article in pdf)
    4. How much Memory Radiation Protection do Onboard Machine Learning Algorithms Require?
      K. Wagstaff and B. Bornstein (article in pdf)
    12:00-13:40
    Lunch break
    13:40-15:00
    		 Session #5 - Optimisation and Diagnosis
    1. Fast Image Texture Analysis for Autonomous Planetary Exploration
      D. Thompson and N.A. Cabrol (article in pdf)
    2. Machine Learning Techniques for Approximation of Objective Functions in Trajectory Optimisation
      C. Ampatzis and D. Izzo (article in pdf)
    3. DrMUST: Automating the Anomaly Investigation First-cut
      J.A. Martinez-Heras, K. Yeung and A. Donati (article in pdf)
    4. Micro-scale Social Network Analysis for Ultra-long Space Flights
      D. Hennes, K.P. Tuyls, M.A. Neerincx and G.W.M. Rauterberg (article in pdf)
    15:00-15:30
    Coffee break
    15:30-17:30
    Interactive Discussion & Wrap Up

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