KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Design for Autonomy: A New Paradigm in System Reliability, Safety and Availability

Prof. George Vachtsevanos
Professor Emeritus
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

Abstract

There is an urgent need to improve the autonomy, safety, survivability and availability of such critical assets as aircraft, robotic systems and complex industrial and transportation processes that are subjected to internal and/or external threats in the execution of a mission. Design for autonomy is taking central stage in the operational needs process development and implementation by responding to significant and urgent safety situations. The industrial and commercial sectors are faced with similar needs and challenges. On-board equipment malfunctions, incipient failures and environmental stresses contribute to aircraft accidents. Most complex systems of interest are now designed and operated with on-board capability to monitor and assess the health of their critical components/subsystems. Such automated processes issue appropriate advisories to the operator/pilot/ground station to take corrective action and avoid detrimental or even catastrophic events. Concepts of autonomy establish the foundational elements of the new paradigm for improved system reliability, safety and availability. We pursue a rigorous systems engineering process to analyze and design the tools and techniques for automated system health monitoring, human-automation interface, control and fault-tolerance. The enabling technologies borrow from reasoning paradigms, advanced tools/methods for system monitoring, data mining, diagnostics/prognostics and fault-tolerant control. We will demonstrate the efficacy of the autonomy architecture with examples from the autonomous systems domain.

Biography of the Keynote Speaker

Dr. Vachtsevanos is currently serving as Professor Emeritus with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He directs the Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory at Georgia Tech where students and faculty are engaged in research on intelligent systems, diagnostics and prognostics of engineering systems and unmanned systems.