Smart health management for swarm-based space exploration systems

Autonomous swarm-based space exploration missions are inspired by social insects to provide a robust means of space exploration. Multiple self-organizing and autonomous spacecraft cooperate to explore deep space where a single monolithic spacecraft is impractical. Such an approach may facilitate exploration without risking human lives, and go where no man can go. The unmanned nature of such systems necessitates high levels of autonomy achieved via self-management features including health management based on automated detection, diagnosis and (re-)action that enables mitigation of adverse events during the mission. Moreover, to increase overall resilience, and ultimately the performance of the entire swarm, the health management mechanism run by an individual must be sufficiently “smart” to comply with the swarm-level goals and policies, which may lead to situations where repair is not the best solution.