Over the next 24 months, NASA and Modern Technology Solutions Inc. (MTSI) will collaborate to develop a framework for autonomous aircraft that can be used to achieve FAA certification.

Known as Resilient Autonomy, the NASA-led project’s goal is to develop a “robust architecture and methodology” for certifying fully autonomous systems by using a technique known as multi-mode run-time assurance (MM-RTA). MM-RTA places a deterministic "wrapper" around the autonomous system's non-deterministic software to safely bind the untrusted system's behavior.

“MTSI is very excited to partner with NASA on this critical initiative as part of a collaborative effort with other industry partners bringing various autonomous system technologies to the project, that will establish the foundation architecture and methodology for how organizations certify the non-deterministic algorithms central to all autonomous vehicles,” says Russell Wolfe, MTSI's vice president of engineering.

“I can't imagine a more meaningful project to apply our agile software development expertise and best practices.”

A provider of engineering services and technology platforms for the defense industry, intelligence community, and commercial markets, MTSI says that this will be its first ever NASA Space Act Agreement.

​Under the company's self-funded Innovation Program, software code and algorithms will be developed that will be part of the core Expandable Variable Autonomy Architecture (EVAA), and support safety monitors and modules under the terms of the Space Act Agreement.