Caroline Chouinard is a member of the Planning and Sequencing Systems Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California where she currently works in mission operations on the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn. Caroline previously worked in mission operations on the JPL Mars Exploration Rovers and the DARPA-funded Orbital Express demonstration of in-orbit automated satellite servicing.

Before directly contributing to mission operations, Caroline developed software for planning and scheduling systems in the Artificial Intelligence Group. She spent several years dedicated to research rovers, transforming several varieties of robotic brains to make intelligent decisions that try to both satisfy scientific requests and react appropriately to uncertain environments.

Caroline received a B.B.A in International Business and Finance in 1996 and a B.A. in Computer Science in 2000 both from the University of Texas at Austin. Her current interests include cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and graphics.

Current Projects

Cassini

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Past Projects

Mars Exploration Rovers (MER)

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Orbital Express (OE)

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Onboard Autonomous Science Investigation System (OASIS)

Responsible for decision-making development of the complete rover life-cycle, including initial plan generation, scheduling, execution, plan optimization and re-planning for events.

The Coupled Layer Architecture for Robotic Autonomy (CLARAty)

Responsible for Decision Layer development, integration, and system testing onboard several real and simulated robotic platforms.
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Closed Loop Execution and Recovery (CLEaR)

Responsible for rover simulation and resource management development and creation of a map visualization tool.

Publications

2008 iCAPS, SpaceOps, SPIE. 2007 iCAPS.

Lead author and presenter. Papers online soon.

Intelligent Rover Decision-Making in Response to Exogenous Events

Lead author and presenter at 2005 International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space. CL#05-1744
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An Approach to Autonomous Operations for Remote Mobile Robotic Exploration

Lead author and presenter at 2003 IEEE Aerospace Conference. CL#03-0683
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Continuous Planning and Execution for an Autonomous Rover

Co-author for 2002 Third International NASA Workshop on Planning and Scehduling for Space. CL#02-2112
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CLEaR: CLosed Loop Execution and Recovery - A Framework for Unified Planning and Execution

Co-author for Technology and Science IND News September 2002. Brochure JPL 410-065

CLEaR: A Framework for Balancing Deliberative and Reactive Control

Co-author for 2002 AIPS Workshop for On-line Planning and Scheduling. CL#01-2668
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Awards

Orbital Express ASTRO Award: For Outstanding Mission Support

Defense Program Office Team Award for Excellence:

Developed the ASPEN Automated Mission Planner for the DARPA Orbital Express mission, and contributed directly to the successful demonstration of autonomous on-orbit refueling and servicing of a host satellite as critical members of the Orbital Express Mission Operations Team.

Engineering and Science Directorate Team Award for Excellence:

For outstanding contributions to the OASIS Development Team leading to the successful demonstration of autonomous planning and scheduling for rover operations.

Planning and Execution Systems Section Individual Award for Excellence:

For outstanding service in the development of the SOOPS Autonomy Demonstration.

Extra

Panel Speaker, WomenFly 2009, Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington.

Judge, 2003 and 2004 California State Science Fair, Senior Mathematics and Computer Science Division.

Panel Judge, Colorado Space Grant Consortium, Undergraduate Space Research Symposium, 2002.