The Sky Is Not the Limit: A Visual Performance Model for Cyber-Physical Co-Design in Autonomous Machines

We introduce the “Formula-1” (F-1) roofline model to understand the role of computing in aerial autonomous machines. The model provides insights by exploiting the fundamental relationships between various components in an aerial robot, such as sensor framerate, compute performance, and body dynamics (physics). F-1 serves as a tool that can aid computer and cyber-physical system architects to understand the optimal design (or selection) of various components in the development of autonomous machines.