First Steps Toward Certifying an UAS to Receive Fuel Airborne

The United States Navy has publicly announced that it intends to deploy unmanned aircraft from aircraft carriers. It is the vision of the United States Navy that future UAS will be given some level of autonomy based on the information available to them. However, a framework to produce certification evidence, also known as artifacts, in support of providing assurance of a system supporting automated air-to-air refueling does not currently exist. The purpose of this paper is to energize the research community into developing a viable method for certification that can be adopted by the United States Navy. We will describe our proposed approach for developing certification standards, and provide some early results. Prior to an airworthiness certification for an unmanned system to complete a task, standards and methods of performance must be developed to test and assure an unmanned vehicle performs safety critical tasks reserved for human in or on the loop with an acceptably low enough level of risk. Until they are, the practical use of autonomy within the United States Navy will remain in the future.