  Autonomous Robotics Systems are inherently safety-critical and have complex
safety issues to consider (for example, a safety failure can lead to a safety
failure). Before they are deployed, these systems of have to show evidence that
they adhere to a set of regulator-defined rules for safety and security. Formal
methods provide robust approaches to proving a system obeys given rules, but
formalising (usually natural language) rules can prove difficult. Regulations
specifically for autonomous systems are still being developed, but the safety
rules for a human operator are a good starting point when trying to show that
an autonomous system is safe. For applications of autonomous systems like
driverless cars and pilotless aircraft, there are clear rules for human
operators, which have been formalised and used to prove that an autonomous
system obeys some or all of these rules. However, in the space and nuclear
sectors applications are more likely to differ, so a set of general safety
principles has developed. This allows novel applications to be assessed for
their safety, but are difficult to formalise. To improve this situation, we are
collaborating with regulators and the community in the space and nuclear
sectors to develop guidelines for autonomous and robotic systems that are
amenable to robust (formal) verification. These activities also have the
benefit of bridging the gaps in knowledge within both the space or nuclear
communities and academia.
