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The rapid integration of AI components into software systems introduces new complexities for requirements engineering (RE). Despite the widespread adoption of AI, few public datasets of requirements and their associated trace links exist for these systems. This lack of available data hinders progress in RE4AI, limiting both the evaluation of existing techniques and the development of new approaches that address the unique challenges of AI. To help bridge this gap, we present a dataset from a real-world Generative AI application consisting of source code written in multiple languages and a diverse hierarchy of software artifacts, including features, functional and non-functional requirements, and design constraints. The dataset also provides manually constructed trace links between these natural language artifacts, with end-to-end traceability to code for a subset of AI-related features. 

Cyber-physical systems increasingly rely on foundational models, such as Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision-Language Models (VLMs) to increase autonomy through enhanced perception, inference, and planning. However, these models also introduce new types of errors, such as hallucinations, over-generalizations, and context misalignments, resulting in incorrect and flawed decisions. To address this, we introduce the concept of Cognition Envelopes, designed to establish reasoning boundaries that constrain AI-generated decisions while complementing the use of meta-cognition and traditional safety envelopes. As with safety envelopes, Cognition Envelopes require practical guidelines and systematic processes for their definition, validation, and assurance. In this paper we describe an LLM/VLM-supported pipeline for dynamic clue analysis within the domain of small autonomous Uncrewed Aerial Systems deployed on Search and Rescue (SAR) missions, and a Cognition Envelope based on probabilistic reasoning and resource analysis. We evaluate the approach through assessing decisions made by our Clue Analysis Pipeline in a series of SAR missions. Finally, we identify key software engineering challenges for systematically designing, implementing, and validating Cognition Envelopes for AI-supported decisions in cyber-physical systems. 

Software documentation supports a broad set of software maintenance tasks; however, creating and maintaining high-quality, multi-level software documentation can be incredibly time-consuming and therefore many code bases suffer from a lack of adequate documentation. We address this problem through presenting HGEN, a fully automated pipeline that leverages LLMs to transform source code through a series of six stages into a well-organized hierarchy of formatted documents. We evaluate HGEN both quantitatively and qualitatively. First, we use it to generate documentation for three diverse projects, and engage key developers in comparing the quality of the generated documentation against their own previously produced manually-crafted documentation. We then pilot HGEN in nine different industrial projects using diverse datasets provided by each project. We collect feedback from project stakeholders, and analyze it using an inductive approach to identify recurring themes. Results show that HGEN produces artifact hierarchies similar in quality to manually constructed documentation, with much higher coverage of the core concepts than the baseline approach. Stakeholder feedback highlights HGEN's commercial impact potential as a tool for accelerating code comprehension and maintenance tasks. 

Software engineering practices such as constructing requirements and establishing traceability help ensure systems are safe, reliable, and maintainable. However, they can be resource-intensive and are frequently underutilized. To alleviate the burden of these essential processes, we developed the Requirements Organization and Optimization Tool (ROOT). ROOT centralizes project information and offers project visualizations and AI-based tools designed to streamline engineering processes. With ROOT's assistance, engineers benefit from improved oversight and early error detection, leading to the successful development of software systems. 

Software engineering practices such as constructing requirements and establishing traceability help ensure systems are safe, reliable, and maintainable. However, they can be resource-intensive and are frequently underutilized. To alleviate the burden of these essential processes, we developed the Requirements Organization and Optimization Tool (ROOT). ROOT centralizes project information and offers project visualizations and AI-based tools designed to streamline engineering processes. With ROOT's assistance, engineers benefit from improved oversight and early error detection, leading to the successful development of software systems. A link to a screen cast can be found at: https://youtu.be/3rtMYRnsu24 

Software documentation supports a broad set of software maintenance tasks; however, creating and maintaining high-quality, multi-level software documentation can be incredibly time-consuming and therefore many code bases suffer from a lack of adequate documentation. We address this problem through presenting HGEN, a fully automated pipeline that leverages LLMs to transform source code through a series of six stages into a well-organized hierarchy of formatted documents. We evaluate HGEN both quantitatively and qualitatively. First, we use it to generate documentation for three diverse projects, and engage key developers in comparing the quality of the generated documentation against their own previously produced manually-crafted documentation. We then pilot HGEN in nine different industrial projects using diverse datasets provided by each project. We collect feedback from project stakeholders, and analyze it using an inductive approach to identify recurring themes. Results show that HGEN produces artifact hierarchies similar in quality to manually constructed documentation, with much higher coverage of the core concepts than the baseline approach. Stakeholder feedback highlights HGEN's commercial impact potential as a tool for accelerating code comprehension and maintenance tasks. Results and associated supplemental materials can be found at https://zenodo.org/records/11403244. 

Small uncrewed aerial systems, sUAS, provide an invaluable resource for performing a variety of surveillance, search, and delivery tasks in remote or hostile terrains which may not be accessible by other means. Due to the critical role sUAS play in these situations, it is vital that they are well configured in order to ensure a safe and stable flight. However, it is not uncommon for mistakes to occur in configuration and calibration, leading to failures or incomplete missions. To address this problem, we propose a set of self-adaptive mechanisms and implement them into a self-adaptive framework,CICADA, for Controller Instability-preventing Configuration Aware Drone Adaptation.CICADAdynamically detects unstable drone behavior during flight and adapts to mitigate this threat. We have built a prototype ofCICADAusing a popular open source sUAS flight control software and experimented with a large number of different configurations in simulation. We then performed a case study with physical drones to determine if our framework will work in practice. Experimental results show thatCICADA’sadaptations reduce controller instability and enable the sUAS to recover from up to 33.8% of poor configurations. In cases where we cannot complete the intended mission, invoking alternative adaptations may still help by allowing the vehicle to loiter or land safely in place, avoiding potentially catastrophic crashes. These safety-focused adaptations can mitigate unsafe behavior in 52.9% to 64.7% of dangerous configurations. We further show that rule-based approaches can be leveraged to automatically select an appropriate adaptation strategy based on the severity of instability encountered, with up to a 14.2% improvement over direct adaptation. Finally, we introduce a variation of our primary adaptation strategy designed to allow more cautious adaptation with limited configuration information, which gets within 6.7% of our primary adaptation strategy despite not requiring an optimal knowledge base. 

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) increasingly leverage Reinforcement Learning (RL) to adapt dynamically to changing environments and optimize performance over time. While RL enhances efficiency and safety by enabling autonomous adjustments to unexpected conditions and hazard avoidance, it also introduces significant risks, as learned behaviors may lead to unpredictable or unsafe actions in real-world deployment. Therefore, integrating risk management into RL system design is essential. In this paper, we propose the \framework, a question-driven approach that translates high-level safety guidelines into RL-specific considerations. This framework helps RL practitioners address key risks early in development, informing new or existing system requirements while ensuring traceability to risk management objectives. To evaluate its effectiveness, we conducted a study across two use cases, engaging six RL experts in developing system requirements with and without the framework. Our findings suggest that the framework promotes critical thinking and helps practitioners identify additional risk factors, ultimately supporting safer RL deployment. 

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) interact closely with their surroundings. They are directly impacted by their physical and operational environment, adjacent systems, user interactions, regulatory codes, and the underlying development process. Both the requirements and design are highly dependent upon assumptions made about the surrounding world, and therefore environmental assumptions must be carefully documented, and their correctness validated as part of the iterative requirements and design process. Prior work exploring environmental assumptions has focused on projects adopting formal methods or building safety assurance cases. However, we emphasize the important role of environmental assumptions in a less formal software development process, characterized by natural language requirements, iterative design, and robust testing, where formal methods are either absent or used for only parts of the specification. In this paper, we present a preliminary case study for dynamically computing the safe minimum separation distance between two small Uncrewed Aerial Systems based on drone characteristics and environmental conditions. In contrast to prior community case studies, such as the mine pump problem, patient monitoring system, and train control system, we provide several concrete examples of environmental assumptions, and then show how they are iteratively validated at various stages of the requirements and design process, using a combination of simulations, field-collected data, and runtime monitoring. 

With the increasing reliance on small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) for Emergency Response Scenarios, such as Search and Rescue, the integration of computer vision capabilities has become a key factor in mission success. Nevertheless, computer vision performance for detecting humans severely degrades when shifting from ground to aerial views. Several aerial datasets have been created to mitigate this problem, however, none of them has specifically addressed the issue of occlusion, a critical component in Emergency Response Scenarios. Natural, Occluded, Multi-scale Aerial Dataset (NOMAD) presents a benchmark for human detection under occluded aerial views, with five different aerial distances and rich imagery variance. NOMAD is composed of 100 different Actors, all performing sequences of walking, laying and hiding. It includes 42,825 frames, extracted from 5.4k resolution videos, and manually annotated with a bounding box and a label describing 10 different visibility levels, categorized according to the percentage of the human body visible inside the bounding box. This allows computer vision models to be evaluated on their detection performance across different ranges of occlusion. NOMAD is designed to improve the effectiveness of aerial search and rescue and to enhance collaboration between sUAS and humans, by providing a new benchmark dataset for human detection under occluded aerial views.