Pioneering Situation-aware Autonomy and Safety for Off-Highway Machinery in Unpredictable Terrain

A limiting factor for the large-scale deployment of autonomous off-road machinery is the lack of reliability and proof of safety. Assuring these aspects is not just complex but hard, and remains an open research topic: Off-road domains are frequently changing, and the overall variability prevents the consideration of every important aspect of the environment or situation during the development phase. In contrast, humans are extremely capable of adapting to unforeseen events and acting safely under such uncertainty. A common strategy is therefore to adopt biology-inspired methods, like implementing human-like cognition and reasoning, to maintain safety.