A FAM-based Switched Control Approach for the Automation of Bioregenerative Life Support Systems

The automation of bioregenerative life support systems poses challenges for the development of model-based approaches given the varying characteristic of the biological processes that constitute them. Switching control paradigms offer an alternative for the management of such uncertainty by introducing flexibility into the control path and allowing for different control modes depending on the operational conditions of the system. This paper presents a perception-based switching control strategy that makes use of sensor information to define and act upon those conditions. Abundant sensor information gives rise to sensing spaces in which the operational conditions of the system are found. A decomposition of the sensing spaces into perceptual elements allows for automation and integration strategies, and for the implementation of fail-safe and fail-operational mechanisms. This paper proposes the use of agents based on fuzzy associative memories to decompose sensing spaces into granular structures composed of n-dimensional non-interactive fuzzy sets. The granular structures allow for the incremental development and automation of the system by associating a control task to each granule. The method presented in this paper is applied to the dynamic model of a reconfigurable aquatic habitat. The habitat serves as a small-scale bioregenerative test bed for life support control research. The method used in this paper may also enable cognitive resources to enhance human interaction with the system.