Towards Identifying and closing Gaps in Assurance of autonomous Road vehicleS - a collection of Technical Notes Part 1

This report provides an introduction and overview of the Technical Topic Notes (TTNs) produced in the Towards Identifying and closing Gaps in Assurance of autonomous Road vehicleS (Tigars) project. These notes aim to support the development and evaluation of autonomous vehicles. Part 1 addresses: Assurance-overview and issues, Resilience and Safety Requirements, Open Systems Perspective and Formal Verification and Static Analysis of ML Systems. Part 2: Simulation and Dynamic Testing, Defence in Depth and Diversity, Security-Informed Safety Analysis, Standards and Guidelines

Pioneering space exploration: The JSC strategy

The framework that JCS's senior management will use to guide effective decision making to achieve our long-rang goals while soliciting inputs from all levels of JSC is presented. This plan was developed to allow us to meet head-on the responsibilities and challenges we have today while assuring that we are well prepared to meet the opportunities and challenges of tomorrow. The JSC strategy is closely aligned with the overall strategic direction currently being defined by NASA. One of our major goals was to keep our plan and process tightly focused but flexible enough so that as our national interests in space exploration evolve, so can JSC

The impact of tecnhology in distribution

Nowadays we are facing a digital era submerse in technology. Information technology is embracing every industry, causing significant impacts and leading to considerable adaptations. The distribution industry is no exception. This study aims to collect evidence supporting that distribution channels are still not benefiting from information technologies full potential. Furthermore, this investigation proposed to understand and analyse the factors that can influence customer mind-set towards technology, either positively or negatively, helping to predict technology acceptance and use more accurately. Moreover, in order to contextualize the impact of technology in distribution, this investigation approached a specific technological innovation, the autonomous vehicles, who promise to revolutionise distribution, particularly in terms of mobility. This dissertation intends to analyse autonomous vehicles growth and predict their impact in a global perspective and objectively in the distribution industry. In this regard, an online survey was conducted, allowing the collection of most up-to-date information about distribution channels, in terms of efficiency and potentialities, in addition to collecting updated data regarding autonomous vehicles beneficial value, as well as, the drawbacks and concerns influencing the acceptance and use of this innovative technology. Thus, it is conclusive that there is clearly a room for improving the current distribution channels, concretely in terms of technological improvements. Autonomous vehicles promise to be a key disruptive technology, however, they will take time to be implemented, as this technology is still being developed. Although, as soon as it reaches its full potential, it is expected that autonomous vehicles face a sudden massive adoption.Atualmente, estamos a enfrentar uma era digital submersa em tecnologia. A tecnologia da informação está inserida em várias indústrias, causando impactos significativos e levando a adaptações consideráveis. O setor da distribuição não é exceção. Este estudo tem como objetivo recolher evidências que sustentem que os canais de distribuição ainda não estão a beneficiar o potencial das tecnologias da informação. Esta investigação pretende analisar os fatores que podem influenciar a mentalidade do cliente em relação à tecnologia, positiva ou negativamente, ajudando a prever a aceitação e utilização da tecnologia com mais precisão. De forma a contextualizar o impacto da tecnologia na distribuição, esta investigação abordou uma inovação tecnológica específica, os veículos autónomos, que prometem revolucionar a distribuição, principalmente em termos de mobilidade. Esta dissertação pretende analisar o crescimento dos veículos autónomos e prever o impacto dos mesmos, numa perspetiva global e especificamente no setor da distribuição. Nesse sentido, foi realizada um inquérito on-line, permitindo recolher informações atualizadas sobre os atuais canais de distribuição, em termos de eficiência e potencialidades, recolhendo ainda dados sobre os benefícios trazidos pelos veículos autónomos, bem como as desvantagens e preocupações que influenciam a aceitação e o uso desta tecnologia inovadora. Assim, é conclusivo que existe um espaço para melhorar os atuais canais de distribuição, concretamente em termos de melhorias tecnológicas. Os veículos autónomos prometem ser uma tecnologia disruptiva, no entanto necessitam de tempo para serem implementados, uma vez que a tecnologia ainda está em desenvolvimento. Assim que atinjam todo o seu potencial, é esperado que os veículos autónomos enfrentem uma adoção repentina e massificada

The future of UAS: standards, regulations, and operational experiences [workshop report]

This paper presents the outcomes of "The Future of UAS: Standards, Regulations and Operational Experiences" workshop, held on the 7th and 8th of December, 2006 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The goal of the workshop was to identify recent international activities in the Unmanned Airborne Systems (UAS) airspace integration problem. The workshop attracted a broad cross-section of the UAS community, including: airspace and safety regulators, developers, operators and researchers. The three themes of discussion were: progress in the development of standards and regulations, lessons learnt from recent operations, and advances in new technologies. This paper summarises the activities of the workshop and explores the important outcomes and trends as perceived by the authors

Aviation Automation and CNS/ATM-related Human-Technology Interface: ATSEP Competency Considerations

Abstract The aviation industry has, no doubt, undergone profound transformations ever since the first powered aircraft flight on December 17, 1903. An especially noticeable aspect of the transformations is in the area of automation. Remarkably, aviation operations are becoming increasingly automated and it is expected that the wind of change sweeping through the industry will be getting stormier as new technologies emerge especially within the context of the emerging prospects of intelligent technologies, which may ultimately enthrone complete automated or technology-based intelligent decision making. Perhaps, in no sphere of the aviation system has there been, in recent times, a much more lively and sustained exhibition of the spirit of automation than in the realm of communications, navigation, surveillance/air traffic management (CNS/ATM). This scenario, invariably, imposes far-reaching obligations on and have wide-ranging implications for air traffic safety electronics personnel (ATSEP) – the ICAO-recognized nomenclature for personnel involved and proven competent in the installation, operation, and/or maintenance of a CNS/ATM system. This paper explores, based on a systematic review of extant literature, the concept of aviation automation in the context of the broader conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of automation and with an emphasis on automated CNS/ATM systems. The primary aim is to examine the implications of an automated CNS/ATM environment on aspects relating to the roles, tasks, competence, and training of ATSEP within the framework of the safety-criticality of air traffic management. Based on arguments regarding ATSEP competency considerations in the context of an automation-rich CNS/ATM environment, a conceptual model of ATSEP competencies and a model of competency-based, human-technology ATSEP task flow are proposed

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Does A Loss of Social Credibility Impact Robot Safety?

This position paper discusses the safety-related functions performed by assistive robots and explores the relationship between trust and effective safety risk mitigation. We identify a measure of the robot’s social effectiveness, termed social credibility, and present a discussion of how social credibility may be gained and lost. This paper’s contribution is the identification of a link between social credibility and safety-related performance. Accordingly, we draw on analyses of existing systems to demonstrate how an assistive robot’s safety-critical functionality can be impaired by a loss of social credibility. In addition, we present a discussion of some of the consequences of prioritising either safety-related functionality or social engagement. We propose the identification of a mixed-criticality scheduling algorithm in order to maximise both safety-related performance and social engagement

Considerations in Assuring Safety of Increasingly Autonomous Systems

Recent technological advances have accelerated the development and application of increasingly autonomous (IA) systems in civil and military aviation. IA systems can provide automation of complex mission tasks-ranging across reduced crew operations, air-traffic management, and unmanned, autonomous aircraft-with most applications calling for collaboration and teaming among humans and IA agents. IA systems are expected to provide benefits in terms of safety, reliability, efficiency, affordability, and previously unattainable mission capability. There is also a potential for improving safety by removal of human errors. There are, however, several challenges in the safety assurance of these systems due to the highly adaptive and non-deterministic behavior of these systems, and vulnerabilities due to potential divergence of airplane state awareness between the IA system and humans. These systems must deal with external sensors and actuators, and they must respond in time commensurate with the activities of the system in its environment. One of the main challenges is that safety assurance, currently relying upon authority transfer from an autonomous function to a human to mitigate safety concerns, will need to address their mitigation by automation in a collaborative dynamic context. These challenges have a fundamental, multidimensional impact on the safety assurance methods, system architecture, and V&V capabilities to be employed. The goal of this report is to identify relevant issues to be addressed in these areas, the potential gaps in the current safety assurance techniques, and critical questions that would need to be answered to assure safety of IA systems. We focus on a scenario of reduced crew operation when an IA system is employed which reduces, changes or eliminates a human's role in transition from two-pilot operations