Question answering over knowledge graphs for explainable satellite scheduling

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Powell, Cheyenne and Riccardi, Annalisa (2025) Question answering over knowledge graphs for explainable satellite scheduling. Journal of Aerospace Information Systems, 22 (12). pp. 993-1012. ISSN 2327-3097 (https://doi.org/10.2514/1.I011531)

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Abstract

Scheduling satellite tasks requires intricate coordination of numerous interconnected activities, posing challenges for ground station operators who struggle to decipher autonomous decision-making systems without explanatory responses. This paper advocates for explainable artificial intelligence to address this gap, leveraging large language models and knowledge graphs to enhance the transparency of scheduling logic. The study explores how operators can retrieve relevant information through natural language queries by integrating language processing with knowledge graphs as core data structures. This approach allows for manual access to knowledge graphs, supplemented with textual explanations, and enables operators to explore different scheduling scenarios, thus improving system robustness and adaptability. Additionally, this paper analyzes how current knowledge graphs and natural language processing techniques are utilized and how they can enhance explainability in satellite scheduling. It investigates the modeling of satellite schedules and environmental data within the knowledge graph. The study introduces a novel approach for generating categorized queries, executable code for knowledge graph data extraction via language modeling, and providing explanatory answers. These are evaluated for correctness, validity, and linguistic quality, demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach.

ORCID iDs

Powell, Cheyenne ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9343-0664 and Riccardi, Annalisa ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5305-9450;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)