Information-Driven Fault Detection and Identification for Multi-Agent Spacecraft Systems: Collaborative On-Orbit Inspection Mission
This addresses fault resilience for autonomous multi-spacecraft inspection in low Earth orbit, representing an incremental improvement in domain-specific fault detection methods.
The paper tackles fault detection and identification in multi-spacecraft systems for on-orbit inspection missions by developing a global-to-local framework that integrates sensor models and mission objectives into a cost functional, with simulation results showing reliable fault localization and classification under uncertainty.
This work presents a global-to-local, task-aware fault detection and identification (FDI) framework for multi-spacecraft systems conducting collaborative inspection missions in low Earth orbit. The inspection task is represented by a global information-driven cost functional that integrates the sensor model, spacecraft poses, and mission-level information-gain objectives. This formulation links guidance, control, and FDI by using the same cost function to drive both global task allocation and local sensing or motion decisions. Fault detection is achieved through comparisons between expected and observed task metrics, while higher-order cost-gradient measures enable the identification of faults among sensors, actuators, and state estimators. An adaptive thresholding mechanism captures the time-varying inspection geometry and dynamic mission conditions. Simulation results for representative multi-spacecraft inspection scenarios demonstrate the reliability of fault localization and classification under uncertainty, providing a unified, information-driven foundation for resilient autonomous inspection architectures.