Assured Onboard Autonomy Architecture for AUVs

May 5, 2021 | AUVSI News

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are becoming widely used in naval defense operations and commercial applications such as oil and gas surveying, environmental monitoring and search and rescue.

During a breakout session today at XPONENTIAL, Arjuna Balasuriya, Senior Scientist at Charles River Analytics presented a new whitepaper on, “Assured Onboard Autonomy Architecture for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles.” Balasuriya’s remarks and whitepaper focused on how building trust with end-users to support limited human interaction with enable AUVs to be integrated in a way that reaches their fullest potential.

A successfully integrated AUV must be adaptable to varying environmental and internal state changes, with top consideration being accuracy, bias and complexity.

To reach these key considerations, autonomous systems need the following capabilities.

• Situational awareness: understand the state of its surroundings and itself

• Mission planning: relate the current state to the mission objectives and goals

• Adaptation: re-configure mission and behavior parameters to the unforeseen changes in the environment and in the AUV

• Communication: receive mission commands using highly constrained, underwater communication channels

• Explainable AI: provide detailed reports to the end user explaining the actions taken in executing the mission

 Contact Mr. Balasuriya to learn more about the findings and recommendations in his whitepaper.