10. Autonomous System-of-Systems

The word "autonomous" means having the ability for self-governance and independent operation. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are systems that are required to exhibit requisite performance for extended durations with the desired level of reliability and safety under significant uncertainties in the environment, while compensating for system failures without external intervention. AVs today are network-enabled. Soon they will be able to communicate with other vehicles and structures in the immediate vicinity (for collision avoidance) and distant vehicles and structures (for congestion management). Most AV concepts employ a network connection to the cloud, other vehicles, and built-up structures. Most vehicle concepts today do not make autonomous decisions with respect to destination and route selection. This chapter briefly reviews AV trends and presents a system-of-systems (SoS) perspective for connected AVs. It then discusses the high-reliability imperative for AVs and presents a model-based approach for AV SoS engineering. It stresses the importance of formal modeling of AV-SoS in light of the need to formally verify system models and test system (model) behavior while assuring requisite flexibility to respond to failures and disruptions. It concludes with a discussion of lingering misconceptions, the issue of liability management, and outlook for the future.