hill.terry

Project Management Using Modern Guidance, Navigation and Control Theory

Presented at PM Challenge 2011

Presenter:Terry Hill, NASA / JSC

Date: February 09, 2011

The full discussion of this topic can be found in: IEEE/AIAA paper IEEEAC#1694 2010

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Overview The Laws of Physics

How they apply to Nature How they apply to Machines How they apply to Humans & Projects

Why A Project Manager should care about GN&C Theory How we currently manage projects How we currently Navigate, Guide and Control

vehicles

When the Two Worlds Collide How this Was Applied to CxP Space Suit Project

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Introduction

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 3

The intent is to educate the project manager about the “laws of physics” of their project and to provide an intuitive, mathematical explanation as to the control and behavior of a project; not to teach a GN&C engineer how to become a project manager.

Additionally, we will address how the fundamental principals of modern GN&C have been applied to NASA’s Constellation Space Suit project, and resulting in the ability to manage the project within cost, schedule and budget.

http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=1084632

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THE LAWS OF PHYSICSWhat’s Coming Next:


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The Laws of Physics All objects, physical dynamics, energies, frequencies,

and light in our observable universe all follow fundamental laws of physics that can be characterized by equations all the way down to the quantum level.

Once you have the equations that fully characterize the physical system, one can predict the outcome of given input to the system with very high probability and accuracy.


Force = Mass * Acceleration

Energy = Mass*(Speed of Light)2

It Doesn’t Add Up There is the interesting phenomena that takes

place where the understanding of the sum of the individual interactions between the system constituents not only is computationally impossible, but has only a third or fourth order effect on the system actual behavior as a whole.

The phenomenon of the dynamic motion of schools of fish, flocks of birds, colonies of bees and ants and large herds of land mammals.


1+1+1 = 10?!?

Why has this not been applied to the dynamics of a group of people working together, in some association with one another, to some agreed ends to their efforts?

That sounds a lot like a project …

… and project manager would like to understand how their project behaves so that they can better understand how to control it and come to a successful conclusion.


Moreover, this also resembles physical systems which the engineering world has developed highly sophisticated mathematics and models to not only understand systems, but control them.

It is this application of engineering principals to human systems that will better provide a physical understanding of how projects respond to input and how to best control the outcome of the system.


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WHY A PROJECT MANAGER SHOULD CARE ABOUT GN&C THEORY

What’s Coming Next:


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What is Guidance, Navigation & Control Theory?!? It is the theory that allows us to control most all of the

machines we build that are more complicated than your wheelbarrow.

The guiding principles of GN&C apply to complex vehicles, system of systems or software with time-varying processes (at times non-linear responses), multiple data inputs of varying accuracy and a range of operating points.


Trains, Planes and Rockets!Oh My!!!

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GN&C Theory in 30 Seconds or less The fundamental principals of GN&C state that a system is

comprised of these basic core concepts:

State Vector Defines of the aspects of the dynamics of the system that can change, such as position, velocity,

acceleration, coordinate-based attitude, temperature, etc.

System Behavior What changes are possible in the system. If properly done, will aid in accurate system performance

prediction in the future.

Control System Models the system dynamics as a function of the control inputs to system outputs in a statistically

meaningful way.

Navigation System Understands the state of the system: Where am I? How Fast am I going? What is my attitude?

Guidance System Understands where we want to be and understands what we need to do to get back on course.

Feedback Systems Is my system responding as I expected?


Simplified GN&C Block Model of a System


Example of Modeling System Dynamics


A mass/spring/damper system drawn in Inkscape by Ilmari Karonen.

€

FTotal = Foscillatory + Fdamping

€

Md2y t( )

dt2 + cdy t( )

dt+ Ky( t) = 0

where: M = Mass of the systemy(t) = is the time varying vertical

displacement of the massc = is the dampening (friction) constantK = is the spring constant

y

Where

€

λ =c

2 MK

€

ω0 =K

M

c

€

˙ ̇ x + 2λω0 ˙ x + ω02x = 0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkscape

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ilmari_Karonen

But What about Project Management?!?


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WHEN THE TWO WORLDS COLLIDE



Project Management Theory To Date


Much of what has been written about Project Management in the last thirty years has been mostly on the evolution of tools, which have proven to aid in the predictability in the outcome of projects.

However, little has been done to characterize the discipline in terms of physical, mathematical models or characterization.

The Equations of Motion for Your Project


€

λ =c

2 MK

€

ω0 =K

M

€

˙ ̇ x + 2λω0 ˙ x + ω02x = 0

Team’s Natural Harmonic

Team’s Damping Coefficient

If your system is under damped - usually through poor or over-reactive leadership (leadership overreacts to events or team members do so respectively) - then your project will expend wasted resources, burn out people or vibrate out of control and fall apart.

If the project leadership is too conservative, it can result in the project taking too long to reach a new and desired state for the project. And in business terms, that could mean millions of lost revenue because the competition arrived at the solution first.

The Equations of Motion for Your Project


€

λ =c

2 MK

€

ω0 =K

M

€

˙ ̇ x + 2λω0 ˙ x + ω02x = 0

Team’s Natural Harmonic

Team’s Damping Coefficient

The natural frequency, ω, is a function of spring constant (or natural dynamic of the project)

The mass, M, or size of the project or team.

The dampening coefficient, λ, is in terms of the damping constant (or friction constant) and can be considered a summation of the resistive forces working against the team or decisions of the project manager.

Traditional Project Control Variables


Specific project control variables can changes depending on the project, but the traditional high-level control variables are (vehicle analogies in parentheses):

Resources (Fuel) Scope (vehicle functional capabilities or mission profile) Project status and authority (attitude determination and

control) Schedule (Thrust, velocity, etc.)

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HOW THIS WAS APPLIED TO CXP SPACE SUIT PROJECT



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Background: CxP Suit Requirement Development Schedule Planned Schedule for 2007:

May 31-Jun 5 – Requirement Training and Kick-off Jun 1-22 – Suit Element Requirements Generation Activities June 25-29 – Suit Element SRR Doc(s) review July 2-6 – Suit Element SRR Doc(s) update & SRR final prep. July 10 – Suit & Vehicle Interface Elements SRR Kick-off July 10-20 – Suit/VI Element SRR Doc review & RID submittal July 22-Aug. 7 – Suit/VI Element SRR Panels and Boards. Aug. 9-Oct 20 – Close SRR Actions and update ERD Oct. 23 – Suit ERD for Baselining at EVA PCB. Oct. 29 – Suit ERD rev. A draft submitted to EVA CM for pre-blackout CSSS

Tech. Library drop for Prime contract RFP release


* Final outcome, Element SRR slipped one week to ensure quality of products where ready for review. Review revealed products were ready and of the appropriate fidelity by EVA project management.

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Scope

System Requirement Review (SRR)


SRR

PDR

CDR

TRR

MCR

Design

Verification

Operations

Upgrade/Maintain

Requirements

SDR

Manufactureor Code

MCR: Mission Concept Review

SRR: System Requirements Review

SDR: System Definition Review

PDR: Preliminary Design Review

CDR: Critical Design Review

TRR: Test Readiness Review

Baseline requirements

Assess feasibility

Set expectations


Putting Requirement Risk in the Proper Perspective Not to put too much pressure on you….

The Requirements Document is probably the single most influential piece of paper that we have control over in the entire Constellation Program.

This is our chance to make sure that we are asking for what we really want. Let’s get it right.

This is a big, fat, hairy deal. If we don’t get this right, folks 20 years from now will be shaking their heads and saying, “What were those yahoos thinking?”

I’ll be around and don’t want to go to that meeting.

CxP EVA Suit PGS Team Requirement Kickoff Meeting 5/2007

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Background: CxP Suit Requirements Development

Approach: Given the extremely success-oriented

schedule, an un-reported problem that might result in a schedule slip of just a day or so was an unacceptable outcome.

Like the high performance aircraft, the subsystems had to work well independently, they had to communicate with other subsystems, they had to communicated on prescribed schedules to the project manager to which he had to assess the information and provide a guidance update to the team and had to produce the desired product to the agreed to schedule.

Information had to flow frequently, accurately and the metrics had to be meaningful to the tasks at hand that were being managed.


What’s New About That? In this situation the team was formulated

and the process in which they would operate, communicate, the information that would be shared, its latency and applicably to what was being controlled was modeled and documented in the very same way that of a vehicle’s GN&C system would have been designed.

Even down to understanding the mass, spring constant and friction coefficient quantities of the team and the subsequent damping response of the team was used to modify the processes, limit the size of the team based upon the unique team dynamics.

By the end of the scheduled four months the team met the schedule dead-line and delivered the first 500 page version of the CxP Suit Element requirements document.


Suit Requirement Development Process

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Bidders for the development of the Suit Element stated that the ERD was:

The JSC Engineering Directorate Crew and Thermal Systems Division Chief was also very impressed with the quality of the Suit ERD, saying:

Results in Project Reviews For the Suit ERD SRR, a ratio of 0.38 Review Item Descriptions

(RIDs) were received per requirement. In comparison, the parent document had a 2.94 RID/requirement ratio at

its SRR.


“… the most comprehensive and of the highest quality they ever remember seeing.”

“I can't say enough about how amazed I am by this set of requirements documents. As far as I know, no other Cx project has allocated and decomposed anywhere near to this level of depth. You are the first. I have also never seen anything like these from previous programs.”

Suit Development Activities to PDR The remainder of the project was re-formulated in the same manner

as has been discussed here to address the changing nature of the team and the external input and expected outputs of the system.

New control systems were put into place where required and tuned so the dynamic response of the team was as required.

Control and management tools like WBS, resource-loaded schedules, control account codes, project risks were all linked such that when on changed, the effect immediately modified the others.

Therefore, per GN&C principals, the Control system’s dynamic model of the system is in terms of the system’s inputs and expected outputs.



Example of Requirement Validation Testing for CY 2007

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Take Away Messages The experience with utilizing modern adaptive GN&C

concepts and experience with the CxP Suit Element engineering team:

During the five years of leadership Never over-ran the budget Only responsible for a two-week schedule slip during the

project’s second year.

All the while, the team implemented all of the mandated NASA and CxP project control requirements, Implementation of EVM, WBS structures, resource-loaded

schedules and program reporting and lead many of the NASA teams in setting up and utilizing the mandated usage of document control system, development of project control processes and structures.


Presenter Biography


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Terry HillNASA/JSC

Terry R. Hill is a member of NASA’s Johnson Space Center International Space Station / Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Team where he is responsible for providing engineering insight into the sustaining engineering and flight operations of the ISS EMU, the 2010 life extension hardware modifications, determining what the system hardware impacts are to extending the ISS EMU support out until 2028 and investigating how the EMU can be used as a demonstration platform for technology development. Terry has a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and an M.S. in Guidance, Navigation & Control Theory with a minor in Orbital Mechanics and Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin. He began his career at NASA while working on his graduate thesis project in developing banks of simplified Kalman filters integrated into an artificial neural network to obtain an optimal state solution for precision landing on Mars.

While at NASA, Terry has worked on projects and programs spanning from ISS navigation software verification, Shuttle navigation design test objectives and back room mission support, X-38 Crew Return Vehicle navigation algorithm development, Space Launch Initiative technology development, Orbital Space Plane Project office ISS-prime integration, STS-107 “Return to Flight” tile repair capability development, to CxP Space Suit Element leadership.

Terry and the Suit Element have been interviewed by the Associated Press and covered by media outlets including CNN.com, Forbe.coms and National Geographic video “Living on the Moon” air date 2009. Terry has also been identified as one of NASA’s Constellation Stars, and was identified as NASA Tech Brief’s Who’s Who in NASA for November 2010.

In leading the CxP Suit Element engineering team, Terry had the responsibilities of JSC’s Engineering Project Manager, the CxP EVA Systems Suit Element Deputy Lead and Element Lead during his tenure on the project. He facilitated the development of system functional requirements for space suit development and a “clean-sheet” design approach that has been widely recognized within and outside NASA.

hill.terry

Technology

system of systems

system dynamics

system behavior

navigation system

guidance system

massspringdamper system

system yt

system outputs