Further Development, Implementation, and Testing of the Veracity Evaluation of non-Redundant Information in Flight sYstems (VERIFY)

ABSTRACT: Phase I results have demonstrated the feasibility of the Veracity Evaluation of non-Redundant Information in Flight sYstems (VERIFY) technology through simulations and flight tests in the case of different sensor failures. In each case an appropriate Fault Detection, Identification and Accommodation (FDIA) scheme was developed, along with confidence measure calculation. Continuing development, integration, implementation and extensive simulation and hardware testing of the VERIFY system will result in a comprehensive software-based FDIA system, which also predicts sensor degradation trends, and generates associated confidence measures. BENEFIT: This project will result in the development, implementation and testing of a software module which provides integrity management for single-thread sensors. The modularity of the software architecture allows the user to apply the developed algorithms to different sensor types. The applications of such a modular integrity management system are tremendous, since unmanned systems are taking a greater role in long-term planning in Air Force and other DoD branches. Unmanned systems such as UAVs, USVs and UGVs are envisioned to be capable of autonomous decision-making, self-determination and self-assessment. Such autonomous systems will greatly benefit from an integrity management system such as VERIFY to determine the health status of non-redundant subsystems, and integrate this information with the overall integrated vehicle health management system. In addition to military applications, automobile industry can hugely benefit from such technology. Future automobiles will be equipped with sensors that provide situational awareness to drivers such as front and rear collision sensors. Such capabilities typically require single thread sensing elements that are utilized as input to a critical system such as the breaking system. Effective FDIA also has a very large payoff in quality control, wherein down-time due to failures is costly. In addition, otherwise healthy sensors are often unnecessarily replaced during scheduled periodic maintenance. VERIFY's ability to perform FDIA and more advanced data corroboration across other weakly correlated sensors (WCS) can reduce maintenance costs.