SCAILET - An intelligent assistant for satellite ground terminal operations

Space communication artificial intelligence for the link evaluation terminal (SCAILET) is an experimenter interface to the link evaluation terminal (LET) developed by NASA through the application of artificial intelligence to an advanced ground terminal. The high-burst-rate (HBR) LET provides the required capabilities for wideband communications experiments with the advanced communications technology satellite (ACTS). The HBR-LET terminal consists of seven major subsystems and is controlled and monitored by a minicomputer through an IEEE-488 or RS-232 interface. Programming scripts configure HBR-LET and allow data acquisition but are difficult to use and therefore the full capabilities of the system are not utilized. An intelligent assistant module was developed as part of the SCAILET module and solves problems encountered during configuration of the HBR-LET system. This assistant is a graphical interface with an expert system running in the background and allows users to configure instrumentation, program sequences and reference documentation. The simplicity of use makes SCAILET a superior interface to the ASCII terminal and continuous monitoring allows nearly flawless configuration and execution of HBR-LET experiments.