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A safety-driven architectural framework for fail-operational drone swarms in critical missions

Authors:

Luiz Giacomossi, Zafer Yigit, Marwan Shakarna , Shoaib Saleemi , Ivan Tomasic, Baran Çürüklü, Håkan Forsberg

Research groups:

Robotics
Safety-Critical Engineering
Heterogeneous systems - hardware software co-design

Publication Type:

Conference/Workshop Paper

Venue:

Proceedings of the 45th Digital Avionics Systems Conference

Abstract

The certification of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms for safety-critical operations requires verifiable design assurance. Airworthiness standards demand deterministic reliability, whereas multi-agent coordination algorithms execute nondeterministic models. This paper proposes a mixed-criticality architectural framework that applies SAE ARP4754B methods to swarm reconfiguration. First, a hardware-isolated Safety Monitor functions as a Run-Time Assurance (RTA) gateway, decoupling the flight-critical core from the non-deterministic Swarm Manager. Second, the monitor enforces formal safety contracts based on agent Health Vectors derived systematically from a Functional Hazard Assessment (FHA). Third, the framework propagates these Health Vectors to the collective planner to trigger fail-operational task reallocation, enabling intelligent swarm behaviors without compromising flight-critical isolation. Markov reliability modeling demonstrates that the 10−7 failures per flight hour Hazardous target is theoretically achievable for our SAIL IV scenario, provided the Safety Monitor meets Cmonitor > 0.9991, consistent with DAL B CMD/MON implementations.

Bibtex

@inproceedings{Giacomossi7413,
author = {Luiz Giacomossi and Zafer Yigit and Marwan Shakarna and Shoaib Saleemi and Ivan Tomasic and Baran {\c{C}}{\"u}r{\"u}kl{\"u} and H{\aa}kan Forsberg},
title = {A safety-driven architectural framework for fail-operational drone swarms in critical missions},
month = {September},
year = {2026},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 45th Digital Avionics Systems Conference},
url = {http://www.es.mdu.se/publications/7413-}
}