The Design of Efficient Ground Software Tools

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  Michael McCurdy\     Guy Pyrzak\                Alonso Vera\
  *NASA Ames Research  Christian Ratterman\       *NASA Ames Research
  Center*              *San Jose State University Center and\
                       Foundation*                Carnegie Mellon
                                                  University*

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Abstract

*This paper will describe the role of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
design in the development and deployment of mission systems. We will
make the argument that more broad application of HCI methods and
practice will be necessary to complete the ambitious objectives of
future missions. In particular, the introduction of increased autonomy,
reduction of ops personnel, increasingly tactical nature of surface
operations, and more distributed mission ground operations present
unique challenges that must be met with sound HCI-driven solutions.*

*We will describe a case study from where solid underlying technology
was hindered by lack of attention to HCI issues, and describe how this
is being remedied moving forward. Future missions will require planning
processes to be much more efficient (orders of magnitude) than what was
achieved for the Mars Exploration Rovers mission (2003). The case study
will focus on the critical shift from the MAPGEN software used for
tactical activity planning on MER to SPIFe, now base-lined for the
Phoenix 2007 and MSL 2009 missions. MAPGEN added automated planning
functionality (Europa) to the APGEN manual planning tool. SPIFe provides
a next generation interface designed specifically to take advantage of
an automated planner. The design of SPIFe is based on hundreds of hours
of observation and operations experience on MER. This paper will examine
how key HCI lessons learned are being fed forward into this new set of
planning tools, SPIFe and Europa 2.*

*Planning at NASA has largely been done \"by hand,\" that is, without
the use of tools to reason about complex constraint interactions, flight
rule violations, etc. This has several shortcomings, but chief among
them are time required to complete the task in this way and the
potential for error. Even when state of the art tools are used, there
are often some fundamental process limitations. Especially when under
time pressure, the planning process is essentially linear and
unidirectional so that once the resulting sequences are written, it is
difficult to modify the original plan. The mitigation for a conflict
discovered late in this process is usually omission of the offending
sequence, which can result in the loss of a science opportunity (in the
best case). Another limitation of current mixed-initiative technology is
a reliance on a single method of visualization for plan contents. Prior
mixed-initiative planning tools are also limited in their ability to
provide users with rich feedback. Better feedback is needed in
particular when interpreting feedback from a mixed-initiative planning
system.*

*SPIFe draws on theory from two disciplines: human-computer interaction
(HCI) and planning research. It is the application of true HCI methods
and principles to a cutting-edge body of planning research that is
unique to the SPIFe tool. General HCI principles pertaining to feedback
and control of systems is coupled with empirical data collection and an
iterative design methodology to produce and validate many of the
innovations described in the previous sections. Planning theory
pertaining to minimizing perturbations temporal networks, state
constraint based planning, and selective enforcement of model rules is
also essential to SPIFe. This paper will argue that intelligent systems
need more, rather than less, sophisticated interfaces to support
efficient user performance.*

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