  The challenge of establishing assurance in autonomy is rapidly attracting
increasing interest in the industry, government, and academia. Autonomy is a
broad and expansive capability that enables systems to behave without direct
control by a human operator. To that end, it is expected to be present in a
wide variety of systems and applications. A vast range of industrial sectors,
including (but by no means limited to) defense, mobility, health care,
manufacturing, and civilian infrastructure, are embracing the opportunities in
autonomy yet face the similar barriers toward establishing the necessary level
of assurance sooner or later. Numerous government agencies are poised to tackle
the challenges in assured autonomy.
  Given the already immense interest and investment in autonomy, a series of
workshops on Assured Autonomy was convened to facilitate dialogs and increase
awareness among the stakeholders in the academia, industry, and government.
This series of three workshops aimed to help create a unified understanding of
the goals for assured autonomy, the research trends and needs, and a strategy
that will facilitate sustained progress in autonomy.
  The first workshop, held in October 2019, focused on current and anticipated
challenges and problems in assuring autonomous systems within and across
applications and sectors. The second workshop held in February 2020, focused on
existing capabilities, current research, and research trends that could address
the challenges and problems identified in workshop. The third event was
dedicated to a discussion of a draft of the major findings from the previous
two workshops and the recommendations.
