The challenges of verification and validation of automated planning systems (keynote)

Abstract

Mission planning is central to space mission operations, and has benefited from advances in model-based planning software. A model is a description of the objects, actions, constraints and preferences that the planner reasons over to generate plans. Developing, verifying and validating a planning model is, however, a difficult task. Mission planning constraints and preferences arise from many sources, including simulators and engineering specification documents. As mission constraints evolve, planning domain modelers must add and update model constraints efficiently using the available source data, catching errors quickly, and correcting the model. The consequences of erroneous models are very high, especially in the space operations environment. We first describe the space operations environment, particularly the role of the mission planning system. We then describe model-based planning, and briefly review the current state of the practice in designing model-based mission planning tools and the challenges facing model developers. We then describe an Interactive Model Development Environment (IMDE) approach to developing mission planning systems. This approach integrates modeling and simulation environments to reduce model editing time, generate simulations automatically to evaluate plans, and identify modeling errors automatically by evaluating simulation output. The IMDE approach was tested on a small subset of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) flight software to demonstrate how to develop the LADEE mission planning system.