12 June 2011
Leading NASA computer scientist to talk in Dundee
Photo opportunity: 10am at Queen Mother Building, University of Dundee on Friday, 17th June. Dr Jeremy Frank will be welcomed to Dundee by staff and students from the School of Computing.
One of NASA's leading computer scientists will visit the University of Dundee later this week to discuss the operation of human spaceflight missions and how they are being altered by new technology.
Dr Jeremy Frank will visit the University’s School of Computing on Friday, 17th June, and deliver a lecture to staff and students, the only talk he will be giving in Scotland. He will also tour Dundee’s Space Technology Centre and see the work being carried out there, and participate in a meeting with the Artificial Intelligence Group.
Dr Frank holds several positions within NASA including being the lead of the Planning and Scheduling Group, which performs research, advanced prototype and tools development for spaceflight mission operations. He is a recipient of the NASA Silver Snoopy Award, a special honour awarded to NASA employees and contractors for outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success.
Dr Karen Petrie of the School of Computing has previously worked with Dr Franks when she interned at NASA. She said she Dr Frank’s talk would prove illuminating for academics and student alike.
'I am delighted to welcome Jeremy Frank to the School of Computing at the University of Dundee,' she said. 'Jeremy is currently undertaking a whistle-stop tour of Europe, and we are delighted that he chose Dundee to be the only stop in Scotland.
'Academics from St Andrews, Glasgow, Strathclyde and Edinburgh are coming to Dundee to share in Jeremy's visit. There are also visitors coming from slightly further afield, with one researcher travelling all the way from Bristol for the chance to meet Dr Frank.
'This talk spans two of the School’s research interests, that of space technology and constraint programming. We really look forward to showcasing the internationally leading research the School of Computing is doing in these areas both to Dr Frank and our other visitors.
'For me personally, it is a chance to catch-up with an old friend and, during his time in Scotland, I hope to repay the kindness that he and his family showed to me when I was a young intern.'
Dr Frank is particularly vaunted for his work in constraint programming (CP), the branch of Artificial Intelligence, where computers help us to make choices. It is a multidisciplinary technology combining computer science, operational research and mathematics. Constraints arise in a number of fields and CP can solve problems in areas relevant to space travel.
NASA’s Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) formalises thousands of operational constraints to help govern human spaceflight missions and ensure the safety of the crew, as well as proper operation of the spacecraft systems and payloads.
A constraint program consists of a set of variables, a set of possible values for each variable, and a set of constraints. For example, the problem might be to fit components (values) to circuit boards (variables), subject to the constraint that no two components can be overlapping. A solution to a CSP is an allocation of values to variables such that none of the constraints are violated.
Today, these constraints are stored in human-readable documents, and are used to configure tools used by the flight controllers who plan and fly missions. Dr Frank’s team have begun developing a novel capability for authoring and maintaining such constraints called the Constraint and Flight Rule Management system (ConFRM).
Among its many functions, ConFRM eliminates the need for manual labour and reduces the possibility transcription errors. In his talk, Dr Frank will describe NASA human spaceflight mission operations, operations concepts, and operations tools and products before detailing the ConFRM project, its architecture and current status.
He will finish by exploring future ConFRM capabilities, and discuss the potential of ConFRM for use on deep space missions and as a generic capability for documentation of operational constraints.
Dr Frank's talk, 'Constraint and Flight Rule Management for Space Mission Operations: Past, Present and Prologue' takes place in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Queen Mother Building from 12pm on Friday, 17th June.
Notes to editors:
About Dr Jeremy Frank:
Jeremy Frank received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Davis, and his BA in Mathematics from Pomona College. Dr Frank has worked at NASA Ames Research Center since 1997.
He is the lead of the Planning and Scheduling Group, which performs research, advanced prototype and tools development for spaceflight mission operations. Dr Frank currently leads the Solar Array Constraints Engine (SACE) project to build a solar array planner for International Space Station operations, and is a member of the Autonomous Systems and Avionics (ASA) project, developing advanced concepts for human spaceflight missions to distant destinations such as Near Earth Asteroids or Mars.
Dr Frank is the recipient of a NASA Silver Snoopy award, the Astronaut's personal award for outstanding achievements related to human spaceflight safety or mission success. His academic interests include Artificial Intelligence, particularly planning, scheduling and combinatorial optimization and search. His recreational interests include ceramics, photography, cooking, story readings, gaming, mathematics, and history.
About the Space Technology Centre:
World leading research on spacecraft technology has been going on in the School of Computing at the University of Dundee for over a decade. This has led to the SpaceWire standard which is being used in many spacecraft by space organisations across the world, and the PANGU planet and asteroid simulation tool which is being used by the European Space Agency to help design navigation systems for future planetary landers.
Environmental data from satellites has been received at Dundee since 1978, resulting in an extremely valuable archive of data for environmental change monitoring and other applications. The Space Technology Centre was formally opened by Lord Sainsbury in 2005. The Satellite Receiving Station at Dundee joined with the Remote Sensing Group at Plymouth Marine Laboratory to form the NERC Earth Observation Data Acquisition and Analysis Service in 2007.
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