THE RATIONAL BEHAVIOR SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE FOR INTELLIGENT SHIPS

The solutions to the power projection, transportation, and operational needs of the Navy as it faces the 21st century must account for reduc ed manning levels. This leads naturally to increased use of computers, automation, and intelligent systems in the concept and design of the next generation of ships. In addition to the acknowledged hardware nee ds, the problem of autonomic and autonomous control of shipboard syste ms and missions are amenable to and will, in fact, require software so lutions. Despite current technology, large, reliable software systems are difficult to achieve because correctness in requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, modification, and maintenance of sof tware are difficult. Software is also difficult to quantize and displa y; hence, the effort and costs involved in its development are easily underestimated. This paper describes an approach to the problem of pro viding structure, in the form of a software architecture, to the softw are performing autonomous control of missions and their related tasks. In concert with the need to reduce complexity, the architecture must support simple, rapid reconfiguration of code should vehicle capabilit ies or mission requirements change. Building upon recent efforts with control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), we propose a tri-lev el control system architecture called the Rational Behavior Model (RBM ) as an approach to autonomous and autonomic control of surface ship m issions and systems.