Integrated Media Technologies for Satellite Decision Support Systems

Abstract

Within the Aerospace industry, the operational community is facing staff reductions, reduced skill levels, and greater complexity of space assets and space missions. This combination requires that techniques be developed that more efficiently interface a human operator with a complex computer system. Operational support of complex space systems will be greatly facilitated by better presentation of information. The presentation and distribution of complex data must evolve towards formats that are easily and naturally embraced by our sensory systems. Some of the information technologies/techniques that facilitate the presentation of complex dynamic graphical data fall into a category called integrated media. The cost of implementing integrated media (IM) architectures has decreased substantially within in the past five years. While implementation costs continue to recede, the quality and value of information that can be presented using IM technologies continues to improve. Today's IM architect can select a variety of components including digital interactive video, 3D Navigable Worlds, Multimedia Authoring Systems, standardized compressors for IM data, low cost high volume storage systems, and operating system extensions for temporal data management. Together, these components form a solid foundation for the development of a variety of compelling IM architectures. Existing satellite support and mission data processing architectures typically present tabular data for assessment. Some "advanced" systems include 2D graphical projections of the data. System experts are generally trained to correlate relationships between tabular data items. The training required to "learn" these complex relationships is tedious and time consuming. This complexity impedes productivity and as space systems increase in sophistication, these techniques for data assessment are quickly becoming antiquated. The development of a prototype decision support system explores the utility of an integrated media documentation system as part of a full-featured decision support architecture for satellite operations.