Enhanced Telemetry Monitoring with Novelty Detection

Abstract

Typically, automatic telemetry monitoring in space operations is performed by out‐of‐limits (OOL) alarms. This approach consists of defining an upper and lower threshold so that when a measurement goes above the upper limit or below the lower one, an alarm is triggered. We discuss the limitations of the out‐of‐limits approach and propose a new monitoring paradigm based on novelty detection. The proposed monitoring approach can detect novel behaviors, which are often signatures of anomalies, very early — allowing engineers in some cases to react before the anomaly develops. A prototype implementing this monitoring approach has been implemented and applied to several ESA missions. The operational assessment from the XMM‐Newton operations team is presented.