Platform Autonomy – State-of-the-Art and Future Perspectives

Autonomy from an unmanned system point of view describes the capability of a platform to accomplish a pre-defined mission with or without further human interaction and/or supervision. The degree of autonomy of the unmanned system depends on the vehicles’ own abilities of sensing, analyzing, communicating, planning, decision-making, and acting (the intelligence of the system), ranging from semi-autonomy to full-autonomy and autonomous collaboration. As a result, the mission and its complexity define the required degree of autonomy of the system and vice versa the technologically feasible level of autonomy may limit the operational deployment and consequently the mission parameters. However, the major challenge for unmanned system autonomy is the limitation of risk during operation. For example: In the air domain risk is inherent with operation in civil airspace, decision making for lethal actions, reliable and precise target identification, unintended or collateral damage or the like. In contrast to all other domains, in the space domain unmanned system autonomy is already state-of-the-art, at least for single spacecraft. In particular, most spacecraft have the ability to autonomously enter a Safe Mode in order to protect themselves from potential damage due to anomalous conditions. Autonomous transitions into Safe Mode often include activities like turning off non-essential payloads and hardware, also known as load shedding, entering a sun tracking guidance mode to maximize solar power generation, and achieving a thermally benign attitude. Other areas in which spacecraft sometimes function autonomously include routine operations such as momentum wheel desaturation, sensor pointing at pre-programmed targets, and similar activities. Occasionally for geosynchronous spacecraft, propulsive station keeping maneuvers are pre-programmed and then executed autonomously, although the degree to which this is done varies from program to program. However, the idea of a space architecture wherein individual spacecraft perform autonomous maneuvers, alter operating conditions, and implement other routine tasks to maintain and optimize the performance of the constellation is an appealing one and remains unsolved. In the presentation, the state-of the art with regard to single unmanned system autonomy in all domains will be addressed. Critical vehicle technologies will be highlighted – based on actual and future AVT activities – which might be able to realize unmanned system autonomy on a more architectural level. Conclusions will give an overview not only with regard to the realization horizon for the air, land, sea and space domains but also with regard to issues that have to be solved for certification of such systems