Professor Kyriakos Vamvoudakis will collaborate with colleagues from academia and industry on a NASA University Leadership Initiative (ULI) grant to create intelligent systems for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) that can independently learn and make safe decisions. These systems will be designed to consistently be aware of safety and ensure that the vehicles operate reliably and securely.

The four-year $6.7 million Safety Aware Learning Assured Autonomy for Aviation project will be headed up by Hever Moncayo from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and include collaborations with Georgia Tech, the University of Texas, Arlington, the University of Southern California, and Collins Aerospace. 

“I’m thrilled to join forces and combine our multifaceted expertise to enhance the safety of Advanced Air Mobility vehicles. Our research is paving the way to make them a reality,” Vamvoudakis stated. “This ULI will bring together experts from academia and industry to speed up progress in aviation safety, improve the reliability and autonomy of future air mobility, and facilitate the integration of autonomous safety systems into commercial and regulatory standards.”

The project will investigate the significant knowledge gaps that have slowed down the national airspace’s use of AAM vehicles such as drones and air taxis. Vamvoudakis and his team will create smart safety system software that can learn independently. This system will help monitor, manage, and control these vehicles safely and reliably. It will also produce national safety guidelines to ensure the vehicles follow safe flight paths and make harmless decisions based on their own learning. Additionally, they will allow vehicles to autonomously adjust their own actions to ensure safety within specific operational limits. The idea is that future AAM vehicles will use smart, non-traditional components to stay safe and perform well, even in unexpected situations and emergencies. Establishing an intelligent system that can diagnose and predict issues independently will be crucial. This system will help ensure these vehicles meet their mission goals safely, despite challenges like unpredictable environments.

This ULI research effort will support the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s (ARMD) outcome for 2020-2035: Initial safe and efficient integration of highly automated vehicles into the National Airspace System (NAS) by introducing aviation systems with bounded autonomy, capable of carrying out function-level goals.

This is Vamvoudakis’ second ULI. He is a part of the Safe and Secure Autonomy Project that is still active.

Co-Pis: K. Merve Dogan, Maj Mirmirani, and Victor Fraticelli (Embry Riddle Aeronautical University), Kyriakos G. Vamvoudakis (Georgia Institute of Technology), Nicholas Gans and Yijing Xie (University of Texas, Arlington), Petros Ioannou (University of Southern California), and Kevin Kronfeld (Collins Aerospace) will play a crucial role in this collaborative effort.