Grand Challenges in the Verification of Autonomous Systems

TL;DR

This paper discusses the major challenges in verifying autonomous systems to ensure their safety and correctness as they become more prevalent in critical applications, emphasizing the need for future research.

Contribution

It identifies key verification challenges for autonomous systems and outlines a research roadmap to address these issues for safe deployment.

Findings

Highlights verification challenges in autonomous systems

Provides a future research vision for verification methods

Emphasizes importance of safety-critical applications

Abstract

Autonomous systems use independent decision-making with only limited human intervention to accomplish goals in complex and unpredictable environments. As the autonomy technologies that underpin them continue to advance, these systems will find their way into an increasing number of applications in an ever wider range of settings. If we are to deploy them to perform safety-critical or mission-critical roles, it is imperative that we have justified confidence in their safe and correct operation. Verification is the process by which such confidence is established. However, autonomous systems pose challenges to existing verification practices. This paper highlights viewpoints of the Roadmap Working Group of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee for Verification of Autonomous Systems, identifying these grand challenges, and providing a vision for future research efforts that will be needed to address them.