(FIDO) is a computer program that reduces the need for a large and costly team of engineers and/or technicians to monitor the state of a spacecraft and associated ground systems and respond to anomalies. FIDO includes artificial-intelligence components that imitate the reasoning of human experts with reference to a knowledge base of rules that represent failure modes and to a database of engineering documentation. These components act together to give an unskilled operator instantaneous expert assistance and access to information that can enable resolution of most anomalies, without the need for highly paid experts. FIDO provides a system state summary (a configurable engineering summary) and documentation for diagnosis of a potentially failing component that might have caused a given error message or anomaly.

FIDO also enables high-level browsing of documentation by use of an interface indexed to the particular error message. The collection of available documents includes information on operations and associated procedures, engineering problem reports, documentation of components, and engineering drawings. FIDO also affords a capability for combining information on the state of ground systems with detailed, hierarchically-organized, hypertext-enabled documentation.

This program was written by Mark James, F. Kronbert, A. Weiner, T. Morgan, B. Stroozas, F. Girouard, A. Hopkins, L. Wong, J. Kneubuhl, and R. Malina of Caltech for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For further information, access the Technical Support Package (TSP) free on-line at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Software category.

This software is available for commercial licensing. Please contact Don Hart of the California Institute of Technology at (818) 393- 3425. Refer to NPO-40361.



This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).
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Software Assists in Responding to Anomalous Conditions

(reference NPO-40361) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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