Application of Management Cybernetics Model to Multi-Agent Space Satellite Control System

摘要

An intelligent agent community mapping is performed with guidance and insight derived from "The Viable System Model", VSM, first proposed by Professor Stafford Beer in a seminal textbook published in 1969 and revised and enhanced in 1972 titled, "Brain of the Firm". The VSM is seen as an appropriate formalism for studying various modes of interaction within communities involved in a space satellite's on-board management. For example there is a clear one-to-one mapping of local environment and satellite energy balance, onto the resource and market environment of the enterprise. Internally, all of the satellite subsystems, including sensory and activation types, exhibit system-subsystem-component recursion. This paper shows how the governance of such satellites can be diagnosed and designed following the cybernetic principles expounded in Beer's work. Agent interaction and collaboration networks and reference models are developed using the System 2 and 4 properties of the VSM and, mission delivery and maintenance processes carried out under the planning and scheduling of System 3. Moreover, agents in the future will be capable of learning and thus will increase their requisite variety enabling them to better handle emergent situations when the satellite is outside the range of ground control. The author envisions that with the introduction and evolution of intelligent multi agent-based flight systems the space industry will benefit as: 1-instant access to flight hardware measurements, allowing the processing of the information, and response in real-time will provide the immediacy, currency, and completeness presently unrealizable and which only the flight component can provide, 2- the replacement of relatively expensive to develop and operate automated ground systems by simpler, cheaper, and often more accurate (due to being real-time rather than predictive) onboard alternatives takes place 3- and with the result that the extension of operational capabilities, both in the science and engineering support areas, beyond their current levels, will yield better, more efficient science at a lower price.