Typical Autonomous System Software Architecture

Autonomous systems, regardless of their physical domain — ground, aerial, or marine — share a common architectural logic that structures how data flows from sensors to decision-making and control units. This section explores the typical functional architecture and the operational pipeline that enable autonomous behaviour.

The foundation of most autonomous systems lies in the Sense–Plan–Act (SPA) paradigm, introduced in early robotics and still relevant today. It slightly extends a general controllable system’s architecture by introducing explicit steps of sensing, decision making and acting. This model organises operations into three distinct but interdependent stages:

1. Sense: Gather and interpret data from sensors to build an internal representation of the environment.
2. Plan: Use that representation to decide on goals, trajectories, or actions.
3. Act: Execute those actions through control and actuation mechanisms.

This conceptual model remains universal across domains and can be represented as follows.