Preparing a Ground System for Plug and Play Exchange of Hardware

Abstract

Plug and play solutions, well established in IT-systems, may also be applied to systems used to operate satellite mission ground segments. Especially at ground stations, the exchange of antenna hardware might be necessary during the lifetime of the supported missions. We describe a possible way to implement such changes, without affecting the provided services, the established operations procedures and the qualification of the entire system. We further analyze, how an additional layer of abstraction, encapsulating the particular hardware in use with respect to the tasks to be fulfilled, can minimize the effort needed to adapt as well the ground station monitoring- and control system as the procedures to operate the newly implemented hardware. Furthermore we highlight the relation between the abstraction needed to implement plug and play solutions and the abstracted description of services defined by the Cross Support Services area of CCSDS. We give some examples of how the discussed techniques are already applied to the monitoring- and control-system WARP at Weilheim ground station. And finally, we discuss the potential to extend the principles of plug and play solutions, developed for ground station equipment, to mission ground segments in general.