Summary

This chapter has provided an overviews of autonomous systems (ground, airborne, marine, space), the initial framing of expectation functions for autonomy, the governance structures into which autonomy must operate, an overview of the validation and verification mechanisms used to support these governance structures, and finally an overview of autonomy in each of the physical domains.

In the subsequent chapters, we will delve deeper into these topics with a framing informed by autonomy abstractions as shown in the figure below. At the “bottom” of these abstractions are the physical objects such as the mechanical devices and the associated electronics hardware. Layered above the electronics hardware layer are various software layers which start with middleware/infrastructure, algorithmic layers, and finally the connection to humans.

These topics will be addressed at the conceptual level and also examined in specific fashion for the four physical domains (example figure below).

Productization Lessons and Assessments:

Key lessons for productization include:

1. Engineers must understand their products operate inside a governance structure consisting of laws, regulations, and standards.
2. In the case of autonomy, there are many historical standards, but standard development is also under development.
3. A very key aspect of product design is the expectation function for the product. This expectation function is key to communication from a marketing perspective and also from a legal liability perspective.

Industries and Companies: