Acquisition Challenges of Autonomous Systems (Conference Paper)

The Department of Defense has stated publicly that future defense capabilities will depend strongly on autonomous systems—systems that make sophisticated judgments about the world and choose appropriate courses of action, and perhaps even adapt and learn over time. Developing and deploying such systems poses more than just a technical challenge in robotics and artificial intelligence—it also poses many challenges to the acquisition process and workforce. From cost estimation to sustainment planning, every aspect of acquisition will be affected. Test and evaluation, in particular, may require not only novel methodologies and resources, but organizational and process changes as well.