QUALTECH SYSTEMS, INC. — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: H6

Description

NASA has been adopting MBSE vigorously in its Systems Engineering (SE) practices for its Space Missions through the use of the System Markup Language (SysML), to betternbsp;define a systemrsquo;s design and operations through a model-centric approach as opposed to anbsp;document-centric approach.nbsp;Fault Management (FM) is an operational subset of SE, and an engineering activity focused on the detection, isolation, diagnosis and response/recovery in the event of faults and anomalies during system operations. It is imperative that while a system is being engineered during its design, adequate FM measures are incorporated in its design so that ldquo;fault protectionrdquo; is an integral part and not an ldquo;afterthoughtrdquo; in the project life-cycle.nbsp;Given the structural and functional complexities of modern space systems, such as those of NASArsquo;s missions for lunar exploration such as the Gateway and other human exploration missions in development, SE processes need to have extensive FM support and analytic capabilities right at the onset of system design, to capture their operational relevance during missions. The key focus of the Systems Engineering Handbook is System Level Analysis across the entire Life Cycle performed within Cost and Schedule constraints.Qualtech Systems, Inc. (QSI) proposes a TEAMS-FM (Fault Management) ldquo;pluginrdquo; capability with the SysML modeling environment, called ldquo;TEAMS-FMrdquo;, that (1) provides a capability to perform FM analysis of a system design in SysML, (2) enables the FM design to be evaluated in an operational context by performing System Health Management (SHM), (3) supports Trade Studies to evaluate the merits of a architecture such as Sensor Placement, Fault Protection, etc. and (4) enables a ldquo;Systemrdquo; level assessment and visualization of FM qualities in the SysML Diagrams. Through thisnbsp;effort, TEAMS-FM brings powerful FM capabilities of TEAMSreg; toolset within the familiar environment of SysML without disrupting the workflow of engineering teams that conduct MBSE.