Unmanned aerial vehicles: Autonomous control challenges,a researcher's perspective

Abstract

Three years ago we outlined the basic challenges faced by autonomous control researchers as intelligence, safety and affordability: • Build intelligence so that the UAVs can do tasks which would normally take a manned aircraft with minimal human oversight. • Instill safety such that we will trust and want to use the systems.• Make the systems affordable alternatives to manned aircraft, because even the most wonderful technology is of no use if we can't pay for it. Now it's three years later,and quite a few million dollars spent, so how are we doing? Although we don't have the final answers, we know a lot more about the questions we should be asking. We also know a lot more about where we should be spending our money to enable UAV operations - the "we needs": • We need to instill situational awareness in our UAVs, especially in the area of airspace operations. • We need to ensure that the autonomous UAVs, and their human supervisors understand each other's intent and actions. • We need to build the proper mental models inside the UAVs "brain" such that they plan and react as we (humans) would, yet allowing the UAVs some level of discretion on task execution such that they (at least for military aircraft) are not 100% predictable. •We need to advance software methodologies to test huge blocks of safety (and flight) critical code. • We need to keep exploring the "realm of the possible" to see which paradigms we are clinging to require casting off. •We need to make our autonomy flexible. These points, as well as others, and lessons learned from our autonomous control programs, are examined in this paper - developing our research vision and direction over the next three years - outlining the areas of interest and what we expect to get from them. Will we make our goals? Don't know - wait three years and look for the next report card.