Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Using obstacle analysis to identify contingency requirements on an unpiloted aerial vehicle

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Requirements Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper describes the use of Obstacle Analysis to identify anomaly handling requirements for a safety-critical, autonomous system. The software requirements for the system evolved during operations due to an on-going effort to increase the autonomous system’s robustness. The resulting increase in autonomy also increased system complexity. This investigation used Obstacle Analysis to identify and to reason incrementally about new requirements for handling failures and other anomalous events. Results reported in the paper show that Obstacle Analysis complemented standard safety-analysis techniques in identifying undesirable behaviors and ways to resolve them. The step-by-step use of Obstacle Analysis identified potential side effects and missing monitoring and control requirements. Adding an Availability Indicator and feature-interaction patterns proved useful for the analysis of obstacle resolutions. The paper discusses the consequences of these results in terms of the adoption of Obstacle Analysis to analyze anomaly handling requirements in evolving systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Parnas DL, Wurges H (2001) Response to undesired events in software systems. In: Hoffmann DM, Weiss DM (eds) Software fundamentals, collected papers by David L. Parnas, Addison-Wesley, Reading, pp 231–246

  2. Dearden R et al (2002) Contingency planning for planetary rovers. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Int’l NASA workshop planning and scheduling for space, Houston

  3. Johnson T, Sutherland H, Bush S (2001) The TRAC mission manager autonomous control executive. In: Proceedings of the IEEE aerospace conference, Big Sky, MT, USA

  4. van Lamsweerde A, Letier E (2000) Handling obstacles in goal-oriented requirements engineering. IEEE TSE 26(10):978–1005

    Google Scholar 

  5. Whalley M, Freed M, Takahashi M, Christian D, Patterson-Hine A, Schulein G, Harris R (2003) The NASA/Army autonomous rotorcraft project. In: Proceedings place of American helicopter society 59th annual forum, Phoenix, AZ, USA

  6. Letier E, van Lamsweerde A (2002) Agent-based tactics for goal-oriented requirements elaboration. In: Proceedings of the 24th ICSE. ACM Press, New York, pp 83–93

  7. Letier E, van Lamsweerde A (2002) High assurance requires goal orientation. In: Proceedings of the international workshop requirements for high assurance system, Essen, Germany

  8. Easterbrook S, Lutz R, Covington R, Kelly J, Ampo A, Hamilton D (1998) Experiences using lightweight methods for requirements modeling. IEEE Trans Softw Eng 24(I):4–14

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Lutz R, Woodhouse R (1997) Requirements analysis using forward and backward search. Ann Softw Eng 3:459–475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Lutz R, Shaw H-Y (1999) Applying adaptive safety analysis techniques. In: Proceedings of the 10th international symposium software reliability Eng (ISSRE’99), Boca Raton, FL, USA

  11. Patterson-Hine A, Hindson W, Sanderfer D, Deb S, Domagala C (2001) A model-based health monitoring and diagnostic system for the UH-60 Helicopter. In: Proceedings of the American helicopter society 57th annual forum. AHS, Washington

  12. Van Lamsweerde A (2004) Goal-oriented requirements engineering: a roundtrip from research to practice. In: Proceedings of the 12th IEEE international requirements engineering conference, Kyoto, Japan

  13. Doerr J (2002) Requirements engineering for product lines. Diploma thesis, University of Kaiserslautern

  14. Mylopoulos J, Chung L, Yu E (1999) From object-oriented to goal-oriented requirements analysis, CACM 31–37

  15. Anton A, Potts C (1998) The use of goals to surface requirements for evolving systems. In: Proceedings of the 20th ICSE, Computer Society, Silver Spring, pp 157–166

  16. Carter A, Anton A, Dagnino A, Williams L (2001) Evolving beyond requirements creep: a risk-based evolutionary prototyping model. In: Proceedings of ISRE, Toronto, Canada, pp 94–101

  17. Cleland-Huang J, Chang C, Christensen M (2003) Event-based traceability for managing evolutionary change. IEEE Trans Softw Eng 29(9):796–810

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Bennett K, Rajlich V (2000) Software maintenance and evolution: a roadmap. In: Finkelstein AF (ed) The future of software engineering. ACM Press, New York, pp 75–87

    Google Scholar 

  19. Lehman MM, Ramil JF (2001) Rules and tools for software evolution planning and management. Ann Softw Eng 11:15–44

    Google Scholar 

  20. Feather M, Fickas S (1995) Requirements monitoring in dynamic environments. In: Proceedings of the ICRE, York, UK, pp 140–147

  21. Heninger K (2001) Specifying software requirements for complex systems: new techniques and their application. In: Hoffmann DM, Weiss DM (eds) Software fundamentals, collected papers by David L. Parnas. Addison-Wesley, Reading, pp 111–135

  22. Berry DM, Cheng BHC, Zhang J (2005) The four levels of requirements engineering for and in dynamic adaptive systems. In: Proceedings of the workshop on the design and evolution of autonomic application software, St Louis, MO, USA

  23. Hui B, Liaskos S, Mylopoulos J (2003) Requirements analysis for customizable software goals-skills-preferences framework. In: Proceedings of the 11th IEEE international requirements engineering conference (RE’03), Monterey Bay, CA, USA, pp 117–126

  24. deLemos R (2000) Safety analysis of an evolving software architecture. In: Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International symposium high assurance systems, Computer Society, Silver Spring, pp 159–167

  25. Lutz R, Mikulski I (2003) Operational anomalies as a cause of safety-critical requirements evolution. J Syst Softw 65(2):155–161

    Google Scholar 

  26. Lutz R, Mikulski I (2004) Empirical analysis of safety-critical anomalies during operations. IEEE TSE 30(3):172–180

    Google Scholar 

  27. Brat G, Drusinsky D, Giannakopoulou D, Goldberg A, Havelund K, Lowry M, Pasareanu C, Venet A, Visser W, Washington R (2004) Experimental evaluation of verification and validation tools on Martian rover software. Formal Methods Sys Design 25(2–3):167–198

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  28. Chien S et al (2001) Onboard autonomy on the three corner sat mission. In: Proceedings of the international symposium AI, robotics, and automation for space. IEEE, Montreal

  29. Verma V, Langford J, Simmons R (2001) Non-parametric fault identification for space rovers. In: Proceedings of the international symposium AI and robotics in space, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

  30. Fox J, Das S (2000) Safe and sound, artificial intelligence in hazardous applications. AAAI Press, Menlo Park

  31. Schreckenghost D, Malin J, Thronesbery C, Watts G, Fleming L (2001) Adjustable control autonomy for anomaly response in space-based life support systems. In: IJCAI-01 workshop autonomy, delegation and control: interacting with autonomous agents, Seattle, Washington, USA

  32. Software product assurance for autonomy on-board spacecraft, European space agency ESTEC. ftp.estec.esa.nl/pub/tos-qq/qqs/SPAAS/StudyOutputs

  33. Qualtech Systems Inc, http://www.teamqsi.com

  34. Lutz R, Patterson-Hine A, Bajwa A (2006) Tool-supported verification of contingency software design in evolving, autonomous systems. In: Proceedings of the 17th IEEE international symposium software reliability engineering (ISSRE’06), Raleigh, NC, USA

  35. Dixon RW, Hill T, Williams KA, Kahle W, Patterson-Hine A, Hayden S (2003) Demonstration of an SLI vehicle health management system with in-flight and ground-based subsystem interfaces. In: Proceedings of the IEEE aerospace conference, Big Sky

Download references

Acknowledgments

The research described in this paper was carried out in part at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautic and Space Administration and funded by NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance Software Assurance Research Program. The first author’s research is supported in part by National Science Foundation Grants 0204139, 0205588, and 0541163. The authors thank Matt Whalley and the other members of the Autonomous Rotorcraft Project team for sharing their expertise and enthusiasm. The authors thank QSI for assistance with the TEAMS toolset. The first author also thanks Martin Feather and Axel van Lamsweerde for insightful feedback on an early draft.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. JPL/Caltech and Iowa State University, 226 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Robyn Lutz

  2. Ames Research Center, Mail Stop 269-4, Moffett Field, CA, 94035, USA

    Ann Patterson-Hine & Chad R. Frost

  3. NelsonConsulting/QSS, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 94035, USA

    Stacy Nelson

  4. USRA/RIACS at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 94035, USA

    Doron Tal

  5. 255 Group, Inc. at Ames Research Center, Mail Stop 262-2, Moffett Field, CA, 94035, USA

    Robert Harris

Authors
  1. Robyn Lutz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ann Patterson-Hine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Stacy Nelson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Chad R. Frost
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Doron Tal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Robert Harris
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robyn Lutz.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lutz, R., Patterson-Hine, A., Nelson, S. et al. Using obstacle analysis to identify contingency requirements on an unpiloted aerial vehicle. Requirements Eng 12, 41–54 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-006-0039-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-006-0039-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation