The SET Perceptual Factors Framework: Towards Assured Perception for Autonomous Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Williams, Troi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Williams, Troi
author_facet Williams, Troi
contents Future autonomous systems promise significant societal benefits, yet their deployment raises concerns about safety and trustworthiness. A key concern is assuring the reliability of robot perception, as perception seeds safe decision-making. Failures in perception are often due to complex yet common environmental factors and can lead to accidents that erode public trust. To address this concern, we introduce the SET (Self, Environment, and Target) Perceptual Factors Framework. We designed the framework to systematically analyze how factors such as weather, occlusion, or sensor limitations negatively impact perception. To achieve this, the framework employs SET State Trees to categorize where such factors originate and SET Factor Trees to model how these sources and factors impact perceptual tasks like object detection or pose estimation. Next, we develop Perceptual Factor Models using both trees to quantify the uncertainty for a given task. Our framework aims to promote rigorous safety assurances and cultivate greater public understanding and trust in autonomous systems by offering a transparent and standardized method for identifying, modeling, and communicating perceptual risks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_10798
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The SET Perceptual Factors Framework: Towards Assured Perception for Autonomous Systems
Williams, Troi
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
Future autonomous systems promise significant societal benefits, yet their deployment raises concerns about safety and trustworthiness. A key concern is assuring the reliability of robot perception, as perception seeds safe decision-making. Failures in perception are often due to complex yet common environmental factors and can lead to accidents that erode public trust. To address this concern, we introduce the SET (Self, Environment, and Target) Perceptual Factors Framework. We designed the framework to systematically analyze how factors such as weather, occlusion, or sensor limitations negatively impact perception. To achieve this, the framework employs SET State Trees to categorize where such factors originate and SET Factor Trees to model how these sources and factors impact perceptual tasks like object detection or pose estimation. Next, we develop Perceptual Factor Models using both trees to quantify the uncertainty for a given task. Our framework aims to promote rigorous safety assurances and cultivate greater public understanding and trust in autonomous systems by offering a transparent and standardized method for identifying, modeling, and communicating perceptual risks.
title The SET Perceptual Factors Framework: Towards Assured Perception for Autonomous Systems
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10798