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Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute

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Abstract

Space exploration applications can benefit greatly from autonomous systems. Great distances, limited communications and high costs make direct operations impossible while mandating operations reliability and efficiency beyond what traditional commanding can provide. Autonomous systems can improve reliability and enhance spacecraft capability significantly. However, there is reluctance to utilizing autonomous systems. In part, this is due to general hesitation about new technologies, but a more tangible concern is the reliability and predictability of autonomous software.

In this paper, we describe ongoing work aimed at increasing robustness and predictability of autonomous software, with the ultimate goal of building trust in such systems. The work combines state-of-the-art technologies and capabilities in autonomous systems with advanced validation and synthesis techniques. The focus of this paper is on the autonomous system architecture that has been defined, and on how it enables the application of validation techniques for resulting autonomous systems.

Keywords

autonomous systems, reliability assessment, robust architecture

Notes

Number of pages: 8

Text Reference

Guillaume Brat, Ewen Denney, Kimberley Farrell, Dimitra Giannakopoulou, Ari Jonsson, Jeremy Frank, Mark Boddy, Todd Carpenter, Tara Estlin, and Mikhail Pivtoraiko, "A Robust Compositional Architecture for Autonomous Systems," IEEE Aerospace, March, 2006.

BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Pivtoraiko_2006_6453,
   author = "Guillaume Brat and Ewen Denney and Kimberley Farrell and Dimitra Giannakopoulou and Ari Jonsson and Jeremy Frank and Mark Boddy and Todd Carpenter and Tara Estlin and Mikhail Pivtoraiko",
   title = "A Robust Compositional Architecture for Autonomous Systems",
   booktitle = "IEEE Aerospace",
   month = "March",
   year = "2006",
}

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