Validation & verification of intelligent and adaptive control systems

Emerging military aerospace system operational goals, such as autonomy, will require advanced safety-critical control systems consisting of unconventional requirements, system architectures, software algorithms, and hardware implementations. These emerging control systems will significantly challenge current verification and validation (V&V) processes, tools, and methods for flight certification. Ultimately, transition of advanced control systems that enable transformational military operations will be decided by affordable V&V strategies that reduce costs and compress schedules for flight certification. This paper describes a comprehensive plan and preliminary results for a study of V&V needs for emerging safety-critical control systems in the context of military aerospace vehicle flight certification.