SAFEMUV: Safe Airframe Inspection using Multiple UAVs
SAFEMUV: Safe Airframe Inspection using Multiple UAVs
Funding Source: Assuring Autonomy International Programme (AAIP)
Coordinator: The University of York, UK
Principal Investigator: Prof. Miguel Olivares-Mendez
Partners: The University of York, UK; Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University, Germany;
Researchers:
- Prof. Miguel Olivares-Mendez
- Dr. Carol Martinez-Luna
Duration: from July 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021. 18 months
Improving the safety of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle teams through the creation of a systematic robustness assessment process.
Overview
Assuring the safety of teams of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that carry out a safety-critical inspection task collaboratively is hugely challenging. There are uncertainties and risks associated with the operating environment, individual UAV failures, an inconsistent global perspective between teams, interference because of limited physical space, and unreliable communication.
This project will develop a process for a systematic robustness assessment of UAV teams. This will be underpinned by methods for the specification, generation and testing of collaborative inspection scenarios, enabling the progressive transition from simulation to lab-based operations and to real-world operations.
Project progress
The SAFEMUV project has carried out a comprehensive analysis of the state-of-practice in the assurance processes for UAV-based applications. Based on insights derived from this analysis and meetings with regulatory bodies and their industrial partners, the team developed the concept of operations needed for executing the safety analysis process of the SAFEMUV demonstrator.
The team has also started implementing a prototype pipeline comprising a dedicated domain-specific language, a model transformation engine and a modular fuzzing platform through which stakeholders will be able to define multi-UAV system and scenario specifications. These specifications will be transformed into executable models for the simulator of the SAFEMUV demonstrator as well as the code required for the real multi-UAV application.
