Asteroid exploration with autonomic systems

NASA is studying advanced technologies for a future robotic exploration mission to the asteroid belt. The prospective ANTS (Autonomous Nano Technology Swarm) mission comprises autonomous agents including "worker" agents (small spacecraft) designed to cooperate in asteroid exploration under the overall authority of at least one "ruler" agent (a larger spacecraft) whose goal is to cause science data to be returned to Earth. The ANTS team (ruler plus workers and messenger agents), but not necessarily any individual on the team, exhibit behaviors that qualify it as an autonomic system, where an autonomic system is defined as a system that self-reconfigures, self-optimizes, self-heals, and self-protects. Autonomic system concepts lead naturally to realistic, scalable architectures rich in capabilities and behaviors. In-depth consideration of a major mission like ANTS in terms of autonomic systems brings new insights into alternative definitions of autonomic behavior. This paper gives an overview of the ANTS mission and discusses the autonomic properties of the mission.