1. An autonomous system that is controlled based on temporal constraints placed upon the behavior of the autonomous system and statistically indeterminate knowledge about the behavior of the autonomous system, the autonomous system comprising: multiple hardware proxies which provide an interface between a controller and system hardware; a statistical state estimator, which provides statistical estimated values and estimated uncertainty values of the state of the system and the controller in response to temporal and behavior constraints and based upon measurements received from the hardware proxies; a control executor that is configured to issue commands to the hardware proxies based upon temporal and behavioral constraints on the system, the statistical estimated values, and the estimated uncertainty values; a state knowledge manager which is configured to coordinate the use the statistical estimates and uncertainties the state of the system; and a set of common models for the behavior of the system, the controller, and the external environment, wherein the common models are used by the state estimator, the control executor, and the state knowledge manager.