KARYON - Kernel-Based Architecture for Safety-Critical Control

There are many benefits in having autonomous and cooperative vehicles, for  example,  unmanned  aerial  vehicles  or  cooperative  smart  cars,  which could operate efficiently in stringent conditions, such as the monitoring of ash  clouds  emitted  by  volcanos  or  in  fast  and  dense  traffic.  However, existing approaches to system design did not provide sufficient guarantees that such vehicles could operate safely in public roads and air space. 

KARYON addressed the problem of finding robust operating strategies for vehicles, which dynamically adjust performance to ensure safety based on actual operational conditions.  Specifically,  the  vehicles  estimate  the confidence  on  the  information  they  collect  from  a  variety  of  sources, including other vehicles, and dependably adjust their behaviour based on that estimation. 

KARYON aimed at defining a system architecture based on a small local safety kernel that would prevent dangerous behaviour. Being a very small subsystem (compared to the overall complex control system),  its predictability can be justified, guaranteeing overall safety with respect to a set of safety rules.