Holistic Contingency Management for Autonomous Unmanned Systems

Contingency Management—the problem of recognizing, assessing, and responding to unanticipated events or conditions that impact plan execution—is a key enabler for unmanned systems to become autonomous systems—that is, able to carry out assigned tasks or missions without continuous human supervision. We present a concept and technology for holistic contingency management that addresses all levels of autonomous system mission execution— from real-time flight-critical failures to long-term issues that can affect teams of vehicles. This concept features several key elements: • Multi-level assessment: Monitoring, assessment, and response occur at multiple levels. • Plan-based assessment: Monitoring is triggered by an assessment of dependencies and constraints on plan execution. • Capability-based assessment: Ongoing assessment of vehicle mission-related capabilities based on subsystem and environment status. • Predictive assessment: Monitoring and assessment of anticipated future events or conditions. • Team-based assessment: Assessment occurs not just of individual vehicles, but at the team level as well. We have implemented a holistic contingency management technology based on this concept to manage detection and response to unexpected events in unmanned vehicle operations. We will describe this Mission Effectiveness and Safety Assessment (MENSA) technology and its application to a number of Department of Defense autonomous system programs.