Mapping a Path to Autonomous Flight in the National Airspace

The introduction of autonomous flight, whether military, commercial, or civilian, into the National Airspace System (NAS) will present significant challenges. Minimizing the impact and preventing the changes from becoming disruptive, rather than an enhancing technology will not be without difficulty. From obstacle detection and avoidance to real-time verification and validation of system behavior, there are significant problems which must be solved prior to the general acceptance of autonomous systems. This paper examines some of the key challenges and the multi-disciplinary collaboration which must occur for autonomous systems to be accepted as equal partners in the NAS. N fiction, autonomous systems do not have a good reputation. From the Jewish folk tale, Golem of Prague , through Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , to Fred Saberhaen's Berserkers series, as well as the infamous Cylons of Battlestar Galactica , automatons are generally not presented as society's benefactors. Even when not terrorizing the world, they are often seen as paranoid − HAL of 2001 and Marvin of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy − or worse, as bumbling tin men looking for a brain. These literature plots reflect their author's perspective of potential problems that can, or might result from the introduction of autonomous systems into the real world. Although the introduction of autonomous flight into the National Airspace will be technically challenging, the most difficult part may be getting good press for the automatons. To accomplish the smooth introduction of autonomous aircraft into the National Airspace System (NAS) we need significantly more knowledge than simply knowing how to design, implement, test, and verify an autonomous system. We need to understand not only the individual autonomous system, but also how collections of tens or hundreds of them interact with each other, as well as with piloted traffic, all vying for maneuvering room within the NAS. Methods need to be developed to understand how unexpected interactions can occur within the control system of an autonomous aerial vehicle, and the potential for unexpected emergent behavior in the swarms of autonomous unmanned aerial systems (UAS) moving within the NAS. And when the understanding of how to build well- behaved autonomous systems is learned, it will be necessary to develop the capabilities to be able to formally verify and validate that these systems are safe: safe for themselves, safe to other aerial vehicles, and safe to anyone or thing on the ground. But the most daunting problem will be developing the skills and knowledge to make autonomous systems trustworthy. For at the bottom line, allowing autonomous aerial systems into the NAS is all about trusting our systems.