Autonomous Incubator Seminar Series:
ASSESSMENT OF AUTONOMY – HANDLING UNCERTAINTY ABOUT BEHAVIOURS AND DECISIONS
Prof. Tristan Perez, Leader Agricultural Robotics, Queensland University of Technology
June 4, 2015, 9:30 am, NASA Langley, Pearl Young Theater
Hosts: Danette Allen (NASA) and Carly Bosco (NIA)
Abstract
As industry pushes for the integration of robotic systems into unstructured operational environments shared with humans and human operated machinery, there is a need to assess autonomy in order to handle decisions about certification, insurance, and operability of robotics and autonomous systems. This seminar discusses recent work done in collaboration with Boeing Research and Technology Australia in the area of assessment of robust autonomy. We pose the problem of trusting autonomy as one of the decisions under uncertainty and propose a framework for assessment of behaviours and decisions in relation to mission requirements over the envelope of operational conditions. This framework borrows ideas from the naval and aerospace sectors. The outcome of this assessment is a set of predictive probabilities computed from Bayesian perspective. This provides a key component of the decision problem. We illustrate the use of the framework for a UAS mission, and discuss how this fits within the national aviation framework and current assessments. We also discuss extensions for multi-vehicle operations and future research directions in this area.
Bio
Tristan Perez completed his Electronic Engineering degree in 1999 at The National University of Rosario in Argentina, and his doctorate in 2003 at The University of Newcastle in Australia in the area of constrained control of stochastic systems with application to ship dynamics. He is currently a Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. His areas of research includes trusted autonomy, bio-inspited guidance and control of unmanned aircraft, Agricultural robotics, and energy-based modelling and control of cyberphysical systems.
In 2004 he was a research fellow at the University of Wales in the UK, where he worked on fault diagnosis of underwater vehicle propulsion systems. He then moved to Norway, where he worked on analytical and experimental modelling of ship dynamics, motion stabilization, and control allocation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)’s Centre of Excellence for Ships and Ocean Structures. He moved back to Australia in 2007 to the Australian Research Council for Centre for Complex Dynamic Systems and Control, where he worked in areas of modelling and control for mining, econometrics, marine vehicles, aerospace manufacturing, and UAS. From 2009 to 2012, Tristan was an Adjoint Associate Professor of Ship Dynamics at NTNU in Norway. In 2010, he was appointed Associate Professor and leader of the Mechatronics Programme at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where he developed the undergraduate programme on mechatronics engineering and the laboratory for robotics and autonomous systems in collaboration with Industry and Defence. In 2014, Tristan moved to QUT. He is currently an Associate investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, and an Honorary Professor at the Queensland Brain Institute of the University of Queensland, Australia.