Maneuver and Data Optimization for High Confidence Testing of Future Automotive Cyber-Physical Systems

The current lack of toolchain for high confidence testing, validation and verification of advanced, connected and automated/autonomous vehicles can impede and even entirely prevent the introduction of such vehicles into mass production. To address this challenge, this projects develops theory, methods, and tools for generating and optimizing test trajectories and data inputs that can maximize opportunities to uncover faults in both physical and cyber domains in future automotive vehicles. Our solution involves the following basic elements: (i) CPS/Smart Black Box with principled sampling-based vehicle data acquisition and management strategies to uncover faults in both existing and future vehicle fleets; (ii) Game theory-based simulation environment to inform in-traffic relevant trajectories; and (iii) Model-free trajectory optimization techniques for actively falsifying time domain specifications. This presentation will summarize our progress toward accomplishing these project goals with emphasis on the Smart Black Box.

Ella Atkins is a Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, where she is director of the Autonomous Aerospace Systems (A2SYS) Lab. Dr. Atkins' research focuses on task and motion planning, guidance, and control to support increasingly autonomous cyber-physical Aerospace systems with focus on small UAS (unmanned aircraft system) and aviation safety applications. Dr. Atkins is author of over 180 refereed journal and conference publications and has served long-term as an associate editor of the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems (JAIS). She has served on numerous review boards and panels, including the 2013 NRC committee to develop a research agenda for autonomy in civil aviation, the NRC Aeronautics Roundtable, NRC NASA Aviation Safety program review board, and Decadal Survey of Aeronautics (Panel E). Dr. Atkins is past-chair of the AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Committee, AIAA Associate Fellow, IEEE senior member, small public airport owner/operator (Shamrock Field, Brooklyn, MI), and private pilot. She served on the National Academy's Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) (2011-2015) and was a member of the IDA Defense Science Studies Group (2012-2013). She currently serves as University of Michigan Robotics Program Graduate Chair.