Fast Run-Time Monitoring, Replanning, And Recovery For Safe Autonomous System Operations

In this paper, we present a fast run-time monitoring framework for safety assurance during autonomous system operations in uncertain environments. Modern unmanned vehicles rely on periodic sensor measurements for motion planning and control. However, a vehicle may not always be able to obtain its state information due to various reasons such as sensor failures, signal occlusions, and communication problems. To guarantee the safety of a system during these circumstances under the presence of disturbance and noise, we propose a novel fast reachability analysis approach that leverages Gaussian process regression theory to predict future states of the system at run-time. We also propose a self/event-triggered monitoring and replanning approach which leverages our fast reachability scheme to recover the system when needed and replan its trajectory to guarantee safety constraints (i.e., the system will not collide with any obstacles). Our technique is validated both with simulations and experiments on unmanned aerial vehicles case studies in cluttered environments under the effect of unknown wind disturbance at run-time.