NASA Releases System-Wide Safety (SWS) Project

Amendment 2 to the NASA ARMD Research Opportunities in Aeronautics (ROA–2020) NRA has been posted on the NSPIRES web site at https://nspires.nasaprs.com.

The objective of this solicitation is to identify a comprehensive assessment of the future needs in software and system validation and verification (V&V) for autonomous aviation cyber-physical-human systems. This needs assessment should consider both ground and airborne systems. The call is not about V&V for Artificial Intelligence (AI), but for V&V for AI-enabled autonomous aviation systems.  An important task will be to identify a roadmap for the development of those V&V needs for the corresponding applications in autonomy and aviation.  At the same time, it is desired that novel V&V techniques be identified where they are needed to address gaps in the regulatory (certification) framework.

Proposals are solicited to provide a realistic mapping of the V&V needs to the technologies and to the enabled services to create a vision for the V&V of autonomy in the 2045 timeframe.  In this regard, there is a particular desire to identify new V*V needs to fill existing or anticipated gaps in the regulatory framework for autonomous aviation. Since the increasing use of autonomy implies a shift in the role played by humans, new V&V approaches addressing the changing roles and responsibilities should be addressed within the vision.

Group proposals are encouraged.  Proposers should reach out to the computational science and engineering community (industry, academia, and regulators) to gain a broad focus.

Notices of Intent (NOIs) are not required for this solicitation.  The proposals are due February 15, 2021 by 5:00 PM Eastern Time.