AUTONOMY · 2026

Supervised Autonomous Decision Architecture for Fixed-Wing UAV

A first-principles safety-critical architecture separating mission reasoning from real-time flight control. Features a deterministic validation layer, independent watchdog monitoring, and graceful degradation to safe flight modes.

Systems EngineeringPX4/ArduPilotSafety-CriticalCompanion Computer

Supervised Autonomous Decision Architecture for Fixed-Wing UAV — fig. 01 — decision pipeline — mission reasoning above, real-time control below

note 01.

Reasoning and control, kept apart

Mission-level decisions run on a companion computer; the flight controller only receives commands that passed deterministic validation.

note 02.

Degrade, never guess

When a subsystem stops answering, the aircraft falls through defined safe modes rather than improvising.

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Supervised Autonomous Decision Architecture for Fixed-Wing UAV detail 2 — FIG. 02 — STATE MACHINE — MODE TRANSITIONS AND DEGRADATION PATHS

Supervised Autonomous Decision Architecture for Fixed-Wing UAV detail 3 — FIG. 03 — PROCESS SUPERVISION — NINE MANAGED PROCESSES UNDER WATCHDOG