Capturing autonomy features for unmanned spacecraft with ARE, the Autonomy Requirements Engineering approach

Along with the traditional requirements, requirements engineering for autonomous and self-adaptive systems needs to address requirements related to adaptation issues, in particular: 1) what adaptations are possible; 2) under what constrains; and 3) how those adaptations are realized. Note that adaptations arise when a system needs to cope with changes to ensure realization of the system’s objectives. To handle these and other issues, Lero - the Irish Software Engineering Research Center has developed the Autonomy Requirements Engineering (ARE). Basically, ARE converts adaptation issues into autonomy features where Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE) is used along with a model for Generic Autonomy Requirements (GAR). The approach is intended to help engineers develop missions for unmanned exploration, often with limited or no human control. Such robotics space missions rely on the most recent advances in automation and robotic technologies where autonomy and autonomic computing principles drive the design and implementation of unmanned spacecraft.