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Meeting	ACGS Committee Meeting 95 - Salt Lake City - March 2005
Agenda Location	5 SUBCOMMITTEE E - FLIGHT AND PROPULSION 5.3 Flight Critical Systems Certification Initiative
Title	Flight Critical Systems Certification Initiative
Presenter	David Homan
Affiliation	AFRL Wright-Patterson AFB
Available Downloads*	presentation
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Abstract	As the Air Force works toward developing intelligent and autonomous weapon systems, a daunting task looms. How can we certify that a decision-making intelligent system is safe when the decisions are unpredictable? Trusting decisions made by autonomous control software will require completely new methods and processes to guarantee safety. The difficulty lies in determining how these intelligent systems will operate in a dynamic environment and with less human oversight. UAV autonomous control is a revolutionary leap in technology. Such control replaces decision-making that required years of training for human operators. Neglecting autonomous control certification research today will dramatically increase tomorrow’s cost of ownership for future users. Certification of flight control technologies is already the most rigorous testing embedded computer systems endure. Intelligent control adds a whole new dimension of issues. New paradigms will be needed to assure safety. Cost and safety objectives will not only influence how we design and build intelligent, autonomous control systems, but will dictate how certification for safety is developed and implemented. The Air Force Research Laboratory Air Vehicles Directorate (AFRL/VA) is currently building an R&D portfolio to investigate Verification & Validation (V&V) technologies to enable airworthiness certification for future intelligent and autonomous control systems under its Capabilities Focused Technology Investment (CFTI) process. The Flight Critical Systems Certification Initiative (FCSCI) has been formed to foster collaboration within the Fixed Wing Vehicle community. In addition, VA has been charged to form a multi-directorate task force to address airworthiness certification under its One Voice R&D planning activity. VA is interested in uniting the aerospace community to join it in a national forum to address the problem in a coordinated manner, and has been advocating an S&T initiative with NSF, NASA and FAA through the High Confidence Software Systems (HCSS) Coordinating Group under the President’s Office for Science and technology Policy. This presentation provides an overview of a strategic plan to organized government agencies, airframe manufacturers, systems integrators, control systems manufacturers, and academia to meet airworthiness certification needs by 2015 and beyond.