Autonomous power expert system

The Autonomous Power Expert (APEX) system was designed to monitor and diagnose fault conditions that occur within the Space Station Freedom Electrical Power System (SSF/EPS) Testbed. APEX is designed to interface with SSF/EPS testbed power management controllers to provide enhanced autonomous operation and control capability. The APEX architecture consists of three components: (1) a rule-based expert system, (2) a testbed data acquisition interface, and (3) a power scheduler interface. Fault detection, fault isolation, justification of probable causes, recommended actions, and incipient fault analysis are the main functions of the expert system component. The data acquisition component requests and receives pertinent parametric values from the EPS testbed and asserts the values into a knowledge base. Power load profile information is obtained from a remote scheduler through the power scheduler interface component. The current APEX design and development work is discussed. Operation and use of APEX by way of the user interface screens is also covered.