Corbin Klett
(Advisor: Prof. Eric Feron)

will propose a doctoral thesis entitled,

Towards Tractable Methods for Formal Verification of Autonomy in Aerospace Systems

On

Monday, May 3rd at 11:00 a.m.
Meeting URL: https://bluejeans.com/798429224

Abstract
The proposed work centers on the development and application of formal verification techniques for real-world aerospace systems. System-level requirements are commonly validated by rudimentary measures of system robustness such as gain and phase margin as well as by extensive simulation and testing. These methods have proven their efficacy for the certification of safety-critical systems but are also incapable of exhaustively testing a system’s behaviors. In many cases, these testing-based methodologies are limited by the creativity of the engineer performing the analysis. On the other hand, advanced mathematical techniques which formally characterize system behavior exist and are quite prolific in academic settings. However, they have not often assimilated into the workflow of real aerospace projects due to the complexity of the systems. In other words, the only way that sufficient safety and performance analysis can be done is through simulation and testing.

The proposed thesis will present an investigation into the application of formal analysis methods in order to contest or perhaps further support that claim. In addition, several formal analysis techniques will be elegantly reformulated in order to make them more accessible to application-oriented controls engineers. The thesis will look closely at systems with attributes specifically encountered in the aerospace field. Often, the formal analysis techniques investigated in the academic literature are presented in a general form, but such generality is not always necessary when the application of such techniques is focused on specific classes of systems.

Committee

• Prof. Eric Feron – School of Aerospace Engineering (advisor)
• Prof. Yongxin Chen – School of Aerospace Engineering
• Prof. Kyriakos Vamvoudakis – School of Aerospace Engineering
• Prof. Samuel Coogan – School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering