Control Design and Evaluation Reducing cost and increasing the safety of flight control systems and flight test. Autonomy , as distinct from automation, is the ability of a system to adjust to unforeseen events, to assimilate real-time information into a coherent structure, and to use this information for decision making or decision aiding. Future autonomous vehicles will gather information of all kinds, perform dangerous missions such as airborne search and rescue, and make air defense less costly both in dollars and human lives. Automation will also play an important role in aiding human decisions, by assimilating large and diverse information sets and creating a coherent situation assessment to airline operators, strategic commanders, and pilots. Reliable Software Engineering Developing the theory and practice of reliable software generation, validation, and implementation.
Software is the primary means by which modern avionics systems are created.
The hardware of these systems is becoming standardized, consisting of sensing, processing and actuation or human interface sites, all interconnected by digital buses. Most of the diversity in the system is embodied in the software. The increasing trend toward greater dependence upon software, both onboard and external to vehicles, is demonstrated by the rapidly increasing proportion of systems costs which are now expended for software.