Expanding the operational range of UAS with an onboard supervisory instance

Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) are used in a variety of civilian and military applications. Nowadays large scale UASs are mostly operated by a dedicated remote pilot, who also supervises the automated flight phases. Driven by the need to expand the operational range, the next logical step is to raise the autonomy level. Autonomy can enable UAS operation in areas where an online supervision is not possible or the operation of multiple UASs by one operator. Additionally new cooperation concepts are in development, leaving the UAS with a task to solve and at the same time giving it a degree of freedom comparable to a human teammate. Close supervision is not intended or not possible in those cases. In such autonomous missions the UAS uses highly complex artificial intelligence algorithms. The algorithms cannot be tested and qualified due to the nearly unlimited number of internal states. As the use of such non deterministic mission systems leads to safety concerns, monitoring is required throughout the entire flight. Our concept is to transfer the operator's rule based supervisory tasks to on board the aircraft and at the same time enable this supervisory instance to intervene with the appropriate procedure if a hard rule is violated. This ensures a deterministic behavior in case of transient or permanent errors in the mission system.