Pilots use situational awareness (SA) to make appropriate aeronautical decisions. Autonomous vehicles will not have a human pilot (or operator) in the loop when off-nominal conditions present themselves, and will rely on sensors to build SA on their environment to make sound aeronautical decisions. As their sensors degrade, it is hypothesized that a point exists where the SA those decisions are based off will be inadequate for sound aeronautical decisions. It will be shown that this point can be identified through modeling and simulation of a simple sensor network to complete a task currently reserved for qualified pilots. This research highlights the process of determining an objective measure for the subjective end and relates it to a possible safety of flight certification for an autonomous system to perform tasks currently reserved for qualified pilots.

飞行员使用态势感知（SA）做出适当的航空决策。当出现非标称条件时，自动驾驶汽车将不会有人工驾驶员（或操作员）在回路中，他们将依靠传感器在其环境上建立自动识别系统以做出合理的航空决策。假设传感器的性能下降，那么这些决策所依据的SA存在的点将不足以做出合理的航空决策。将表明，可以通过对简单传感器网络进行建模和仿真来完成这一点，从而完成当前为合格飞行员保留的任务。