There are many potential NASA applications for this innovation, for instance, intelligent adaptive flight control systems, adaptive engine control, space exploration applications including mated flight vehicle coordination, docking, and control of autonomous robots, flyers, and satellites. The national Research Council has identified intelligent and adaptive systems as one of the five common threads for the "51 high-priority R&T challenge". Adaptive systems technologies have been identified explicitly to be the key enabler for intelligent flight controls, advanced guidance and adaptive air traffic management systems for improving safety and maintenance. Successful experimental results developed by NASA researchers have suggested the significant potential of intelligent adaptive control systems. These systems must be certified before they can be adopted for use in safety-critical aerospace applications. Conventional V&V methods are for not suitable for adaptive learning systems, and rigorous novel V&V methods must be developed before intelligent adaptive systems become part of the future.
The proposed approach can potentially be used for many safety critical applications, including military and commercial aircraft, U.S. air transportation systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous robots, nuclear power plants, etc. It will lead to benefits in the form of improved safety, survivability, and superior control performance of safety-critical systems.
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