Integrating Runtime Verification into a Sounding Rocket Control System
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The Department of Aerospace Engineering seeks to instruct the design, analysis, testing, and operation of vehicles which operate in air, water, or space, including studies of aerodynamics, structure mechanics, propulsion, and the like.
History
The Department of Aerospace Engineering was organized as the Department of Aeronautical Engineering in 1942. Its name was changed to the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1961. In 1990, the department absorbed the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics and became the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. In 2003 the name was changed back to the Department of Aerospace Engineering.
Dates of Existence
1942-present
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- Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics (1990-2003)
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- College of Engineering (parent college)
- Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (merged with, 1990)
Computer Science—the theory, representation, processing, communication and use of information—is fundamentally transforming every aspect of human endeavor. The Department of Computer Science at Iowa State University advances computational and information sciences through; 1. educational and research programs within and beyond the university; 2. active engagement to help define national and international research, and 3. educational agendas, and sustained commitment to graduating leaders for academia, industry and government.
History
The Computer Science Department was officially established in 1969, with Robert Stewart serving as the founding Department Chair. Faculty were composed of joint appointments with Mathematics, Statistics, and Electrical Engineering. In 1969, the building which now houses the Computer Science department, then simply called the Computer Science building, was completed. Later it was named Atanasoff Hall. Throughout the 1980s to present, the department expanded and developed its teaching and research agendas to cover many areas of computing.
Dates of Existence
1969-present
Related Units
- College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (parent college)
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECpE) contains two focuses. The focus on Electrical Engineering teaches students in the fields of control systems, electromagnetics and non-destructive evaluation, microelectronics, electric power & energy systems, and the like. The Computer Engineering focus teaches in the fields of software systems, embedded systems, networking, information security, computer architecture, etc.
History
The Department of Electrical Engineering was formed in 1909 from the division of the Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering. In 1985 its name changed to Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. In 1995 it became the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Dates of Existence
1909-present
Historical Names
- Department of Electrical Engineering (1909-1985)
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering (1985-1995)
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- College of Engineering (parent college)
- Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering (predecessor)
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Abstract
An actuation fault in the aerobraking control system (ACS) took down Iowa State’s Nova Somnium rocket during the 2019 Spaceport America Cup competition, prematurely ending the team’s participation. The ACS engaged incorrectly before motor burnout, altering the rocket’s trajectory and leading to a dangerous crash. The ability to detect this fault in real time on-board the ACS’s Arduino microcontroller would have prevented an uncontrolled landing and rapid unscheduled disassembly, which posed a major safety threat and ended a year’s worth of effort by the 50-student team. Runtime verification (RV) specializes in efficiently catching this type of scenario; the R2U2 RV engine uniquely fits in the project’s resource constraints. We design specifications to detect ACS faults and trigger the appropriate mitigations. We discuss specification development, validation, coverage, and robustness against false positives. Experimental evaluation on the real, recorded flight data demonstrates that running R2U2 on the Nova Somnium ACS would have prevented this accident from occurring. We generalize our results and outline our plans for integrating runtime verification into future sounding rockets.
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This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of a proceeding published as Hertz B., Luppen Z., Rozier K.Y. (2021) Integrating Runtime Verification into a Sounding Rocket Control System. In: Dutle A., Moscato M.M., Titolo L., Muñoz C.A., Perez I. (eds) NASA Formal Methods. NFM 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12673. Springer, Cham. The final authenticated version is available online at DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-76384-8_10. Posted with permission.