Trust and Certification of Autonomous Systems

Abstract:

As technology pushes automation to greater degrees of autonomy, the verification  and  validation burden becomes more cost and time prohibitive. It has been well established that, as stated in AF Technology Horizons 2010, “It is possible to develop systems having high levels of autonomy, but it is the lack of suitable V&V methods that prevents all but relatively low levels of autonomy from being certified for use." This increased move towards further levels of autonomy has brought the certification need to a national level. Every domain with security and safety critical systems is looking to advance the state of the art in certification including, aviation, transportation, information assurance, medical, and energy. As unmanned/autonomous systems become more complex, the notion is becoming increasingly invalid that systems can be fully tested against all problems seen in uncertain and dynamic environments. Our goal is to increase trust the next generation of autonomous, human-automation, and cooperative control systems by providing evidence of safety;  utilizing new advances in formal methods design, verification, and run time assurance to augment current test methods. We intend to accomplish this by replacing exhaustive tests with analytical proofs, optimizing test through early design, and bounding against untestable or non-deterministic failures. This poster discusses some of the efforts by the Air Force Research Laboratory, Aerospace Systems Directorate and national partners to change the paradigm of how we currently V&V safety critical autonomous systems.

  • CPS Domains
  • Energy
  • Health Care
  • Manufacturing
  • Transportation
  • Automotive
  • Avionics
  • CPS Technologies
  • Systems Engineering
  • Foundations
  • Validation and Verification
  • Certification
  • 2013
  • National CPS PI Meeting 2013
  • Poster
  • CPS PI Poster Session
Submitted by Brian Hulbert on Wed, 10/23/2013 - 11:20