Automated Verification of an Onboard Mission Planning and Execution System for UAVs

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Automated mission planning is one of the key components of an autonomous UAV. The software validation and verification for such decisional autonomy functions is a challenging problem. The software component includes the closed loop vehicle control as well as environment perception. As this is a safety-critical software component, it is important that this software works safely and within projected performance boundaries. This paper discusses the verification and validation approach for the sampling-based mission planner of an unmanned rotorcraft. A layered test strategy is presented, which utilizes different testing methods that complement and build upon each other. Its strengths as well as the possible improvement directions of this approach are discussed. An emphasis is given on automated software-in-the-loop simulations. The approach additionally utilizes benchmarks to assess the implementation performance and real time properties. Finally, to be able to assess the overall test quality, a set of different scalable test abstractions (SUT size, test effort, level of automation, coverage, test complexity and feedback time) is used to analyze the presented strategy.

Engineering

Automated Verification of an Onboard Mission
Planning and Execution System for UAVs
Christoph Torens, Florian Adolf
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Institute of Flight Systems, Dept. Unmanned Aircraft
AIAA Infotech@Aerospace 2013
Aerospace V&V Methods
Boston, MA

ARTIS UAV Family
Autonomous Research Testbed for Intelligent Systems
miniARTIS (1.5kg) midiARTIS (14kg) maxiARTIS (25kg)
superARTIS (150kg)
www.DLR.de • Chart 2 > Infotech 2013 > Christoph Torens • Automated V&V of an Onboard Mission Planning System for UAVs > 19 / 8 / 2013
Prometheus (25kg)

Mission Planning and Execution (MiPlEx):
Example Mission Task
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MiPlEx: Verification & Validation Motivation
Planning and execution of complex behavior
UAV onboard autonomy increases software complexity
Higher system complexity makes verification more difficult
Safety critical domain
High testing costs / efforts
Compliance with standards
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Research
Research
Early
Error
Detection
Faster
Development
Cycles

Test Methodologies
Formal
Techniques
Static Tests
Unit Tests
Software-
in-the-
Loop
Hardware-
in-the-Loop
Flight Test
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CppCheck
Static
Asserts

Test Dimensions
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Formal Techniques
• Studies have been done in research and industry
• Model-based tests evaluated for
ARTIS Mission Manager
• Model adaptation from existing
UML state charts
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Higher system complexity
Safety critical domain
High testing costs / efforts

0
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Test Effort
System Under Test
Scenario
Complexity
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Static Tests
• Static asserts
• BOOST concept checks
• CCCC, Cppcheck, CppLint
• Doxygen
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CppCheck
Static
Asserts
Safety critical domain
High testing costs / efforts

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Test Effort
System Under Test
Scenario
Complexity
Coverage
Feedback Time
Automation
Unit Tests
• Tests recreate overall test structure
• Bottom to Top
• Basic and subsequently
higher level functions are tested
• Test dependency structure assures
minimal runtime in case of error
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Compliance with standards

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Software-in-the-Loop Simulation
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Higher system complexity
High testing costs / efforts
3.8 million
assertions
273 test
cases
Runtime
> 6
hours

Software-in-the-Loop Simulation:
Online Exploration
www.DLR.de • Chart 11 > Infotech 2013 > Christoph Torens • Automated V&V of an Onboard Mission Planning System for UAVs > 19 / 8 / 2013
Sensor: Rotating LIDAR

Software-in-the-Loop Simulation
Automatic Benchmarking
Problem Specific
Benchmarks
Trajectory
length
Planning
time
Trajectory
time
Distance to
obstacles
Vehicle Specific
Benchmarks
Velocity
limits
Acceleration
limits
Turn rate
limits
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Mettler B., 2010
Automate Expert Evaluation
Score

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Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation
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High testing costs / efforts

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Flight Tests
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Compliance with standards

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6
Test Effort
System Under Test
Scenario
Complexity
Coverage
Feedback Time
Automation
Static Tests
SIL
MBT / MC
ARTIS Test Dimension Evaluation
• Evaluation of Test Methodology and Test Strategy
• Emphasis on automation and feedback time
• Great value from SIL Tests, Static Tests, Formal Methods
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System Under Test
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Unit Tests
SIL
HIL
Flight Test

Thank you for your
attention!
Please feel free to ask
questions.
christoph.torens@dlr.de

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