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A Framework for Analyzing Adaptive Autonomous Aerial Vehicles

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Software Engineering and Formal Methods (SEFM 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 10729))

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Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a.k.a. drones, are becoming increasingly popular due to great advancements in their control mechanisms and price reduction. UAVs are being used in applications such as package delivery, plantation and railroad track monitoring, where UAVs carry out tasks in an automated fashion. Devising how UAVs achieve a task is challenging as the environment where UAVs are deployed is normally unpredictable, for example, due to winds. Formal methods can help engineers to specify flight strategies and to evaluate how well UAVs are going to perform to achieve a task. This paper proposes a formal framework where engineers can raise the confidence in their UAV specification by using symbolic, simulation and statistical and model checking methods. Our framework is constructed over three main components: the behavior of UAVs and the environment are specified in a formal executable language; the UAV’s physical model is specified by a simulator; and statistical model checking algorithms are used for the analysis of system behaviors. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework by means of several scenarios involving multiple drones.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    IOP binaries and documentation are available at https://jlambda.com/~iop/.

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Acknowledgments

Nigam was partially supported by Capes and CNPq. This work has been partially developed under contracting of Diehl Aerospace GmbH and Airbus Defense GmbH. Talcott and Mason were partially supported by ONR grant N00014-15-1-2202. Nigam and Talcott were partially supported by Capes Science without Borders grant 88881.030357/2013-01.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SRI International, Menlo Park, USA

    Ian A. Mason & Carolyn Talcott

  2. Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil

    Vivek Nigam & Alisson Brito

  3. fortiss, Munich, Germany

    Vivek Nigam

Authors
  1. Ian A. Mason
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  2. Vivek Nigam
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  3. Carolyn Talcott
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  4. Alisson Brito
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vivek Nigam .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan

    Antonio Cerone

  2. Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Povo, Italy

    Marco Roveri

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Mason, I.A., Nigam, V., Talcott, C., Brito, A. (2018). A Framework for Analyzing Adaptive Autonomous Aerial Vehicles. In: Cerone, A., Roveri, M. (eds) Software Engineering and Formal Methods. SEFM 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10729. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74781-1_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74781-1_28

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