hello
my name is wes powell i'm the principal
technologist for avionics within the
space technology mission directorate at
nasa
i'll be providing you an overview of our
needs for advanced avionics in the near
future
first a definition of avionics avionics
is broadly defined as the electronic
systems within
aircraft and spacecraft however this
presentation will focus more narrowly
on space systems here we're defining
avionics as the hardware and software
infrastructure necessary
for the command and control of
spacecraft and surface assets
they're providing the onboard
intelligence
and interconnection to integrate the
functions of other subsystems and manage
their operation as a whole
avionics can be viewed as a foundational
technology
providing resources to enable many other
functions within space systems
one example of this would be autonomous
landing systems that rely on the
computing resources
provided by avionics avionics can
in and of itself be viewed as a
subsystem but avionics components are
often embedded within other
instruments and subsystems as well
examples of this
include field programmable gateways that
are embedded within software-defined
radios
and processors and memories embedded
within science instruments
there are some functions that are
sometimes defined as being within the
scope of avionics including
power system communications and
navigation
these areas are not addressed here in
this presentation but will be addressed
in other presentations there are many
fundamental technologies that are
required to implement avionics systems
i'll mention a few of them here
starting with architectures there are
architectures needed at various levels
of abstraction
ranging from the system level which
would dictate how
boxes and subsystems are interconnected
all the way down to architectures within
a chip itself
computing systems are needed which can
include processors of a
variety of devices memory as well as
flight software
interconnect is needed which includes
wired both copper and optical
cabling as well as wireless interfaces
and computer human interfaces are needed
which can include audio systems displays
and the graphics hardware needed to
drive those displays
other areas that are included are
include packaging security sensor
data acquisition and control as well as
things such as cabling and support
circuitry
here we've provided a couple of
illustrations one for
crewed mission avionics and another for
robotic science mission avionics
what you'll see is there are some
commonalities between these two
including uh the presence of computing
onboard networks
data storage subsystem control
housekeeping sensing
and flight software some of the unique
aspects
of crewed missions include
the inclusion of computer human
interfaces
greater degrees of redundancy to ensure
crew safety
increased complexity one example of
which is the
redundant onboard network that's shown
in the picture may be
augmented by one or more wireless
systems
and then serviceability as the crew is
able to service and maintain the
avionics once on orbit
some specific aspects of robotic science
mission avionics include a
first off a much wider variability
emission sizes
which can range to small missions such
as cubesats
all the way up to flagship missions such
as the james webb space telescope
with some of these mission sizes there
can be much more tightly constrained
size weight and power requirements
than you would see on crewed missions
you'll also see redundancy tailored to
specific mission requirements where some
less critical missions may employ just
single string avionics while
more critical flagship missions may have
fully redundant cross-draft avionics
systems
science missions may also be deployed to
harsher environments including
extreme environments such as europa and
the surface of venus
and historically there has been limited
serviceability of
science mission avionics although that
could change as
our robotic servicing technologies
increase in the future
there's some specific challenges that
are faced when
developing uh space avionics
these include radiation for total
ionizing dose can cause performance
degradation and failure
and single event effects can cause data
corruption functional upsets
and permanent failure temperature is
another challenge
and while most missions maintain
avionics operating temperatures between
0 and 40 degrees celsius
temperature extremes for other missions
can range from negative 180 degrees
celsius
for shadowed lunar surface missions
to above 400 degrees celsius for the
surface of venus
mission lifetime is another challenge
and uh this can vary widely again
between
different missions or some small sat
missions
can have uh mission to plan mission
durations of less than a year
while crewed missions and flagship
mission science missions can have
durations up to 15 years
another challenge is the need for
resilience avionics must provide
sufficient resilience to
meet mission objectives in the presence
of faults
depending on mission requirements this
resilience can be achieved through
operational approaches uh for instance
placing a spacecraft in a known safe
state
uh when a fault occurs architectural
redundancy such as triple
modular redundancy that's illustrated to
the right
supervisory circuits such as watchdog
timers and over
voltage and current protection circuitry
and another means for achieving
resilience is
a selection of high reliability
components
uh to develop the avionics
other challenges include planetary
protection requirements that may require
harsh processing prior to launch
and some planetary environments uh which
are caustic notably
sulfuric acid clouds on the
atmosphere of venus
so i'll now present the avionics
technology gaps that we're tracking
uh to achieve the outcome of onboard
computing
to enable autonomous landing surface
navigation
robotic servicing and assembly data
processing for food and science
robotic science missions we've
identified some gaps including general
purpose processors
co-processors memory point load
converters machine learning devices
as well as high performance single board
computers and software infrastructure
to provide storage to support novel and
contingency mode
operations for crewed missions we will
need
advanced onboard mass data storage uh
for crew human interfaces we need
displays and controls that can operate
and provide situational awareness for
missions beyond low earth orbit
and operate reliably in cis lunar and
mars environments
these include radiation tolerant
displays eva heads up display optics
graphics processor units audio systems
and mobile computing devices
in the area of radiation tolerant
interconnect we need onboard networks to
enable high bandwidth video and sensor
communication
for crewed and robotic science missions
and beyond that
high bandwidth we also need to ensure
the integrity of mission critical and
time critical command and control
traffic
for this we're looking for high
bandwidth network protocols and physical
layer devices
high rate deterministic wireless
networks and smart power buses
we also need sensors to enable crew
situational awareness as well as
navigation and robotic servicing and
assembly for crewed and science missions
here we're looking for imaging sensors
proximity sensors
and wireless sensor networks in the area
of extreme environment electronics
we're looking for electronics that can
withstand the extreme temperatures
of lunar and planetary surfaces as well
as high radiation electronics
that can withstand the high radiation
environment of some planetary
destinations
we've also identified some push
technologies of interest
while these technologies don't have as
direct a connection for infusion into
upcoming missions
they're nonetheless viewed as being
important for the future
within the area of the advanced computer
human interfaces
we're looking to technologies including
speech recognition
virtual reality and augmented reality to
help reduce the size weight and power of
our electronics we're looking for
advanced packaging
additively manufactured electronics
mixed signal structured asics
for reduced size weight and power of
interconnect we're looking for
miniaturized and or reduced mass
wiring conductors connectors and
shielding as well as uh
new technologies including data over
power networks
to advance the capabilities of future
computing systems we're looking to
integrated
photonics to contribute to that area and
in the area of security we're looking
for
defense in-depth software security in
summary
future crewed and science missions will
present new challenges
these range from increased autonomy to
increased sensor data rates
harsh environments increased volume of
data to manage and long-duration
missions
we're going to need advanced avionics
technologies to meet all these needs
thank you for your time