Kyle Dunlap

Abstract: Run Time Assurance (RTA) systems are online safety verification techniques that filter the output of a primary controller to assure safety. RTA approaches are used in safety-critical control to intervene when a performance-driven primary controller would cause the system to violate safety constraints. This presentation presents four categories of RTA approaches based on their membership to explicit or implicit monitoring and switching or optimization interventions. To validate the feasibility of each approach and compare computation time, four RTAs are defined for a three-dimensional spacecraft docking example with safety constraints on velocity.

Biography:

Bio: Kyle Dunlap is a first-year Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Cincinnati. His research interests are: Real-Time Safety Assurance, Safety Critical Control, Autonomous Systems, Reinforcement Learning, and Genetic Fuzzy Systems. His advisors are Dr. Kelly Cohen, Brian H. Rowe Chair and Interim Head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering & Engineering Mechanics at the University of Cincinnati, and Dr. Kerianne Hobbs, Run Time Assurance Team Lead at the Air Force Research Laboratory. In 2020 Kyle worked with NASA Glenn Research Center to develop control-based fault detection and mitigation strategies for electrified aircraft propulsion systems. In both 2020 and 2021, he worked with the Air Force Research Laboratory to first apply deep reinforcement learning to safe autonomous spacecraft docking, and then to develop real-time safety assurance techniques for this task. Kyle received his BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2021.