On Fault Tolerance and Robustness in Autonomous Systems

Abstract

The dependability of autonomous systems is a particular concern, notably because of the advanced decisional mechanisms and other artificial intelligence techniques on which such systems rely. This paper sets the context of dependability and autonomy, and focuses on two non-exclusive approaches aiming to improve dependability: fault tolerance and robustness. The paper gives definitions of these approaches, and studies their relationship and applicability to autonomous systems.