Discover

During the Intelligent Autonomous System (IAS) Discovery Phase, we tailor a set of activities aimed at:

  1. Us helping your organization more fully understand IAS and level-setting your staff as to the terminology, roles, applicability, benefits, and challenges of incorporating an IAS.

  2. You helping us understand your organization and its vision, goals, processes, workforce, customers, suppliers, challenges, etc.

  3. All of us working together to envision, scope, assess, and prioritize possible IAS solutions based on a mutual understanding of your internal challenges, plans, aspirations, competition, risk tolerance, urgency, budget and more.

This phase is most successful when there is ongoing interaction with and participation of client staff and stakeholders. This approach allows us to gauge knowledge gaps, avoid misunderstandings, and gain feedback on our results and recommendations in stride.

The sections below provide examples of these Discovery activities.

Learning and Awareness

Intelligent Autonomy 101 seminar/workshop:

  • What is an Autonomous System and what makes something autonomous

  • How AI and Machine Learning make It more capable and resilient

  • Explore existing candidate applications and Use Cases that may shed light on what your organization could do

We will be learning about your organization and its vision, goals, processes, workers, customers, suppliers, etc.

  • Conduct knowledge exchange sessions and/or interviews

  • Review documents and other materials that you provide

Evaluate your IAS readiness

Play the “Pain Game” (aka “What keeps you up at night?”)

Brainstorm organization-specific Use Cases

Assess your competition’s use of IAS

Explore and evaluate IAS products that might supply some or all of your needs

Explore touchpoints and Interactions with people and other systems

Who are the users and maintainers?

Who will be operating the intelligent autonomous system?

Who provides and receives its information and data?

What are the outside influencers, such as Regulators (especially for autonomous aircraft), Standards bodies, Insurers, and Unions?

What are the relevant software applications and cloud or local data repositories that potentially produce or provide information needed by the IAS and/or that potentially consume or store information produced by the IAS?

What are the physical systems, such as machinery, cameras and other sensors, that similarly need to interact with the IAS?

Scope out a notional (or “rough”) solution

Lay out a recommended conceptual design of the IAS solution that captures the:

  • Desired features, capabilities, tasks, and behaviors

  • Desired human and system interfaces

  • Desired performance, precision, and safety goals

  • Desired degree of human oversight/involvement/interaction

  • Desired degree of interaction with other physical infrastructure, systems and machinery (e.g, is it acceptable to introduce markings on the floor/road or walls to help the IAS confirm its position and orientation?)

  • Applicable high-level restrictions or constraints

  • Applicable policies or organization-specific regulations that must be followed

Assess IAS applicability and its potential cost-benefit-risk and ROI

Assess Buy-Build-Blend solution options

Flesh out the Design and Deployment strategy (Most clients prefer a crawl-walk-run approach):

  • Do we need a Proof-of-Concept Prototype?

  • Do we need a Demonstration Prototype?

  • Do we need a Pilot Prototype?

  • Do we start with a Minimum Viable Product and iteratively expand from that?

  • Do we go straight to the full solution?

Deliver our results and recommendations in a Scoping Study document for client review and distribution