Autonomy Level Specification for Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles: Interim Progress Report | NIST

Abstract As unmanned systems become widely employed in various applications, it is critical to have a set of standard definitions and metrics for specifying and evaluating the systems in terms of their levels of autonomy. Developing autonomy levels for unmanned systems is a complex issue that has to take into account many factors such as task complexity, human interaction, environmental difficulty, mission and system dependence, and quality factors. We report on a workshop that addresses this issue. 1. Introduction Unmanned vehicles have been fielded in several domains in the recent past, ranging from battlefields to Mars. Most major efforts have been funded by various U. S. Government agencies. As the number of programs for developing unmanned systems (UMS) accelerates within government, there is a growing need for characterizing these systems. Individual government agencies have begun these efforts. The Department of Defense Joint Program Office (JPO), the U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center, and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have, in separate but related efforts, described levels of robotic behaviors for the Army Future Combat Systems (FCS) program [1, 2, 3]. The Air Force Research Laboratory has established Autonomous Control Levels (ACL) [4]. The Army Science Board has described a set of levels of autonomy [5]. It is imperative that these and other agencies leverage each other’s efforts and aim at a government wide consistent approach. These efforts have been driven by the advance of mobile robotic technology and the expanded roles that unmanned systems are playing in military and civilian situations. As Government agencies specify unmanned system capabilities, it is critical to have a set of standard definitions. These definitions can also provide a basis for metrics for system performance evaluation. An ad hoc government working group has been formed to address these issues. The ultimate objectives for the working group are: • To determine the needs for metrics for autonomy levels of unmanned systems. • To devise methods for establishing metrics of autonomy for unmanned systems. • To develop a set of widely recognized standard definitions for the levels of autonomy for unmanned systems. This paper briefly summarizes the first workshop. Follow-on workshops are planned, starting with one in mid-September 2003. Proceedings of the 2003 Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS) Workshop, Gaithersburg, MD, August 16 - 18, 2003.