Towards True UAV Autonomy

Uninhabited aerial vehicle (UAV) autonomy will not only give a whole new experience and capability to our defence forces, but will open a new dimension for scientists in the operations research area. The use of artificial intelligence agents to represent battle field entities has been a main focus of DSTO's air operations division (AOD). However moving from the simulation environment to real world is a big step forward. Removing the necessity of man powered ground control station is an even greater challenge. AOD, air vehicle division (AVD) and weapons system division (WSD) have combined to develop a concept demonstrator, exhibiting true autonomy inflight. This paper focuses on showing how this was done and the lessons learnt during the development and the field trials, relating primarily to preparation for hardware and software failure. Further work in this area is also discussed.