Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Towards a Unified Framework for UAS Autonomy and Technology Readiness Assessment (ATRA)

Farid Kendoul

Abstract


As the number of programs for developing autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) accelerates, there is a growing need for a comprehensive framework that allows UAS practitioners, particularly researchers, to characterize, compare and assess the UAS autonomy technologies from the perspectives of their capabilities and maturity. In this paper, we propose the Autonomy and Technology Readiness Assessment (ATRA) framework that provides definitions and metrics to systematically evaluate the autonomy level of a UAS and to correctly measure the maturity of its autonomy enabling technologies. The ATRA framework combines both Autonomy Level (AL) and Technology Readiness Level (TRL) metrics to provide a comprehensive picture of how the UAS would behave in realistic operational environment, and its suitability for a particular application. An example of ATRA’s application to the CSIRO autonomous helicopter will be shown. This is still an ongoing research, and once the framework is further populated and completed, it can serve as a common reference for the UAS research community and provide a framework in which to evaluate the existing autonomy technologies, view how they relate to each other, and make qualitative and quantitative comparisons.

Full Text:

PDF

References


F. Kendoul, “A survey of advances in guidance, navigation and control of unmanned rotorcraft systems,” (to appear) Journal of Field Robotics, 2012.

T. B. Sheridan, Telerobotics, Automation, and Human Supervisory Control. MIT Press, 1992.

R. Parasuraman, T. B. Sheridan, and C. D. Wickens, “A model for types and levels of human interaction with automation,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 286–297, 2000.

C. Castelfranchi and R. Falcone, Agent Autonomy. Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Neitherlands, 2003, ch. From Automaticity to Autonomy: the Frontier of Artificial Agents, pp. 103–136.

B. Zeigler, “High autonomy systems: concepts and models,” in Proceedings of the AI, Simulation, and Planning in High Autonomy Systems, Tucson, AZ, March 1990, pp. 2–7.

R. W. Proud, J. J. Hart, and R. B. Mrozinski, “Methods for determining the level of autonomy to design into a human spaceflight vehicle: A function specific approach,” in Proceedings of the Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS), Gaithersburg, MD, 2003, pp. 1–15.

B. T. Clough, “Metrics, schmetrics! how the heck do you determine a UAV’s autonomy anyway?” In proceedings of the Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS) conference, 2002.

H.-M. Huang, E. Messina, and J. Albus, “Autonomy levels for unmanned systems (ALFUS) framework volume ii: Framework models, version 1.0,” Contributed by the Ad Hoc ALFUS Working Group Participants, NIST Special Publication 1011-II-1.0, 2007.

DoD, “Technology readiness assessment (TRA) deskbook,” Defense Acquisition Guidebook, pp. 1–129, July 2009.

J. C. Mankins, “Technology readiness levels: A white paper,” NASA, Office of Space Access and Technology, pp. 1–5, April 1995.

DoD, “Technology readiness levels,” US Department of Defence (DoD), 2006.

H.-M. Huang, “Autonomy levels for unmanned systems (ALFUS) framework volume i: Terminology, version 2.0,” Contributed by the Ad Hoc ALFUS Working Group Participants, NIST Special Publication 1011-I-2.0, pp. 1–47, 2008.

M. R. Endsley, “Situation awareness in aviation systems,” Handbook of Aviation Human Factors, Publication of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999.

T. Merz and farid Kendoul, “Beyond visual range obstacle avoidance and infrastructure inspection by an autonomous helicopter,” in Proceedings

of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Robotics and Autonomous Systems (IROS), San Fransisco, USA, September 2011, pp. 1–8.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21535%2FProICIUS.2011.v7.383

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.