Relating Sensor Degradation to Vehicle Situational Awareness for Autonomous Air Vehicle Certification

Costello, Donald H.; Xu, Huan

doi:10.2514/1.i010905

Cited by 10 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…An integral problem to solve with sensor fusion will be ensuring the time synchronization and update rates between all contributing sensors have the precision and frequency required to enhance the blended solution and not inadvertently degrade the solution [ 79 ]. Without fusion or with a suboptimal fusion solution, the UA will be operating with decreased awareness to the environment, which will be a critical consideration for airworthiness officials to consider when conducting the risk assessment of the UA [ 80 ].…”

Section: Review Of Sensor Requirements For A3rmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Sensor Technology to Support Automated Air-to-Air Refueling of a Probe Configured Uncrewed Aircraft

Parry

Hubbard

2023

Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As technologies advance and applications for uncrewed aircraft increase, the capability to conduct automated air-to-air refueling becomes increasingly important. This paper provides a review of required sensors to enable automated air-to-air refueling for an uncrewed aircraft, as well as a review of published research on the topic. Automated air-to-air refueling of uncrewed aircraft eliminates the need for ground infrastructure for intermediate refueling, as well as the need for on-site personnel. Automated air-to-air refueling potentially supports civilian applications such as weather monitoring, surveillance for wildfires, search and rescue, and emergency response, especially when airfields are not available due to natural disasters. For military applications, to enable the Air Wing of the Future to strike at the ranges required for the mission, both crewed and uncrewed aircraft must be capable of air-to-air refueling. To cover the sensors required to complete automated air-to-air refueling, a brief history of air-to-air refueling is presented, followed by a concept of employment for uncrewed aircraft refueling, and finally, a review of the sensors required to complete the different phases of automated air-to-air refueling. To complete uncrewed aircraft refueling, the uncrewed receiver aircraft must have the sensors required to establish communication, determine relative position, decrease separation to astern position, transition to computer vision, position keep during refueling, and separate from the tanker aircraft upon completion of refueling. This paper provides a review of the twelve sensors that would enable the uncrewed aircraft to complete the seven tasks required for automated air-to-air refueling.

show abstract

Section: Review Of Sensor Requirements For A3rmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Sensor Technology to Support Automated Air-to-Air Refueling of a Probe Configured Uncrewed Aircraft

Parry

Hubbard

2023

Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Other work, particularly in the medical context, has suggested basic prerequisite steps to facilitate regulation of autonomous systems, such as common data definitions, standards, and security protocols [41], [42]. And still other researchers have focused on generating evidence that can be used by a certification authority to judge the validity of the autonomous system [43]- [45].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Path Dependent Approach for Characterizing the Legal Governance of Autonomous Systems

Borson

2022

IEEE Access

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Autonomous systems promise significant improvements in many fields. These systems will be subject to legal governance requirements. The literature has largely focused on "autonomous governance" as a framework that is broadly applicable to autonomous devices regardless of the type of system (e.g., aviation or motor vehicles) at issue. While there are regulatory principles applicable to autonomous systems generally, an "autonomy-focused" approach is an inadequate lens to consider the governance of these systems. Rather, because autonomous systems are improvements of currently regulated complex systems, the regulation of autonomous elements will occur within those systems' preexisting regulatory framework. Accordingly, the nature of future autonomous regulation will likely depend on the preexisting features of that substantive system, rather than on an optimal approach divorced from that history, an attribute known in the social science literature as path dependency. In order to characterize diverse regulated systems with an eye toward assessing future autonomous developments, we develop a framework of regulatory approaches to identify specific features of the preexisting regulatory scheme for a given system. We then analyze that approach by examining three different regulatory regimes (aviation, motor vehicles, and medical devices), across two different continents, and consider how the same type of requirement, e.g., fail-safe systems, can lead to different types of regulations depending on the differing baseline framework.

show abstract

“…[7][8][9] Prior work by researchers has focused on this problem. [10][11][12][13] Several issues have been identified for certifying autonomy (i.e., the complexity of autonomous systems results in an inability to test under all known conditions, difficulties in objectively measuring risk, and an ever-increasing cost of rework/redesign due to errors found late in the V&V process 14 ). The decision space for certifying a vehicle to complete all tasks assigned is extremely complex.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several possible approaches have been proposed, but none have been vetted through the naval flight clearance authorities 7–9 . Prior work by researchers has focused on this problem 10–13 . Several issues have been identified for certifying autonomy (i.e., the complexity of autonomous systems results in an inability to test under all known conditions, difficulties in objectively measuring risk, and an ever‐increasing cost of rework/redesign due to errors found late in the V&V process 14 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using a run time assurance approach for certifying autonomy within naval aviation

Costello

2023

Systems Engineering

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The methods and procedures within United States naval aviation to certify an aircraft safe for flight are well established. However, these methods and procedures are based on clearing a system that is operated or monitored by a human. A fully autonomous system will not have a human in or on the loop and will therefore require a new method for certifying it safe for flight. This paper details how to use run time assurance as the framework for a safety of flight certification of autonomous behavior within United States naval aviation. We present an aerial refueling task with run time assurance as use case for the framework for certification. Within the use case we then give more details on the mechanics of using RTA to enable autonomous functionality within naval aviation.

show abstract

Relating Sensor Degradation to Vehicle Situational Awareness for Autonomous Air Vehicle Certification

Cited by 10 publications

References 35 publications

Review of Sensor Technology to Support Automated Air-to-Air Refueling of a Probe Configured Uncrewed Aircraft

Review of Sensor Technology to Support Automated Air-to-Air Refueling of a Probe Configured Uncrewed Aircraft

A Path Dependent Approach for Characterizing the Legal Governance of Autonomous Systems

Using a run time assurance approach for certifying autonomy within naval aviation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About