A Verification Methodology for Safety Assurance of Robotic Autonomous Systems

2025-06-24

AI Summary

Autonomous robots operating in dynamic, unstructured environments—such as agriculture—face dual challenges of ensuring functional reliability and regulatory compliance within human-robot collaborative settings. Method: This work proposes a lifecycle-wide safety verification framework integrating systematic hazard analysis, quantitative risk assessment, and formal modeling techniques to enable end-to-end assurance—from early-design defect detection to runtime verification of safety properties. It introduces a verifiable safety controller model supporting rigorous formal verification of critical safety attributes, including collision avoidance and emergency stop. Contribution/Results: Evaluated on a real-world agricultural robot platform, the framework significantly improves system safety and certification pass rates. It delivers a reusable, standards-aligned technical pathway for trustworthy deployment of autonomous systems in high-risk operational scenarios.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multi-Robot Systems
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & Trustworthiness
• Natural Language Processing: Safety and Robustness

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Agentic search

Abstract

Autonomous robots deployed in shared human environments, such as agricultural settings, require rigorous safety assurance to meet both functional reliability and regulatory compliance. These systems must operate in dynamic, unstructured environments, interact safely with humans, and respond effectively to a wide range of potential hazards. This paper presents a verification workflow for the safety assurance of an autonomous agricultural robot, covering the entire development life-cycle, from concept study and design to runtime verification. The outlined methodology begins with a systematic hazard analysis and risk assessment to identify potential risks and derive corresponding safety requirements. A formal model of the safety controller is then developed to capture its behaviour and verify that the controller satisfies the specified safety properties with respect to these requirements. The proposed approach is demonstrated on a field robot operating in an agricultural setting. The results show that the methodology can be effectively used to verify safety-critical properties and facilitate the early identification of design issues, contributing to the development of safer robots and autonomous systems.

Problem

• Ensuring safety in autonomous robots for human environments
• Verifying safety properties in dynamic, unstructured agricultural settings
• Developing a lifecycle verification workflow for hazard analysis

Innovation

• Systematic hazard analysis and risk assessment
• Formal model for safety controller verification
• Runtime verification in agricultural robot