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FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

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Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#61

Post by xoa »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #5

Frankly the tech for autonomous aviation has been around for a while now. I expect even strong crosswind landings will soon be better handled by a computer than a pilot. But then here’s the problem... Autonomous systems are great when things are going well, but at the end of the day they fare very poorly in edge cases sometimes with catastrophic results. When you’re driving a car you usually follow traffic rules and…

>Autonomous systems are great when things are going well, but at the end of the day they fare very poorly in edge cases sometimes with catastrophic results. [...] All in all, while technologically I feel this could have been pulled off yesterday, I doubt we will see fully autonomous aircraft operating long routes in controlled airspace anytime soon.

You're correct that edge cases are tricky, but you've made the mistake of forgetting the other possible half of dealing with them that full robotics makes possible: simply sufficiently reduce the cost of edge failure. An aircraft with humans on board crashing is a tragedy, even if it's in the middle of nowhere. In general a cargo aircraft carrying mass produced goods crashing in the middle of nowhere is merely a financial statistic. By far the trickiest part of flying is takeoff/landing and navigation on the ground. But players with shipping volume at the level of FedEx, UPS, USPS or probably even Amazon/Walmart alone can flat out afford their own dedicated airports. With no existing path dependency, they can easily build them quite a ways from population.

This completely changes the calculus and possible responses. If something goes badly wrong on takeoff/landing or at the automated airport itself, it just costs money. There is financial incentive for the players to figure it out, but it doesn't involve anyone else. And once at flight given modern aircraft glide ratios, there is no place on the planet that doesn't have ocean/empty land within glide range. For human flights, ditching the plane as safely as possible, or hopefully making it all the way to an airport, are critical considerations. For a robot plane though experiencing an all-engine out just specifically ordering it to crash somewhere without anyone around is mostly okay (there will be some environmental pollution, but it'd be trivial on humanity's list of environmental damage, and the operator could be fined for cleanup). Robot aircraft could even flat out be equipped with self-destruct systems like the range safety systems rockets have.

So for the specific domain of dedicated cargo craft it seems reasonable that fully autonomous control could exist far ahead of human transport simply by virtue of being more expendable and having infrastructure purpose built exclusively for it in ways that are impractical elsewhere.

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#62

Post by bobbriody »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #57
bobbriody wrote: post #51

We're hiring! https://reliable.co/careers/ We built avionics, software, mechanisms and a comm system that enables automated operation of the plane from a remote command station. The remote operator has a GUI where they can command the aircraft. This article goes into a bit more detail about how it works: https://www.flightglobal.com/airframers/with-tesla-and-space...

No remote positions?

Some positions require on-site but we're open to remote and have quite a few remote folks already.

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#63

Post by sokoloff »

hanniabu wrote: post #22
liability wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along these lines, would an autopilot ever think of landing in the Hudson? (Particularly if it hadn't been done before?)

Devil's advocate: Would a human pilot be skilled and lucky enough to pull this off a second time?

IMO, the critical thing the human crew did in US1549 was the decision to take the Hudson; once they decided that, most crews could pull off the execution of that decision. (Then the presence/absence of boat traffic comes down to luck.)

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#64

Post by sokoloff »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #9
keehun wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be quite a feat without updating the quality of the voice transmissions. When you listen to some recordings of ATC, it becomes clear pretty quickly that context clues is paramount to being able to communicate with ATC. Some of the transmissions are so difficult to hear it amazes me that humans can even communicate through it. Perhaps a lot of that is cabin noise, and without it, the transmissions would bec…

For what it’s worth the radio transmissions sound quite a bit more clear (usually) in the plane. LiveATC uses ground stations which don’t always have great reception and they compress the audio like crazy. I can barely make out what they say on LiveATC sometimes but in the air it’s rarely a problem.

Agreed. The radio comms are also generally following a fairly predictable pattern of information.

If you suddenly transmitted "and I'll have a BLT on rye, hold the mayo", you're almost certainly going to be asked "say again?"

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#65

Post by 0xfaded »

bobbriody wrote: post #51

We're hiring! https://reliable.co/careers/ We built avionics, software, mechanisms and a comm system that enables automated operation of the plane from a remote command station. The remote operator has a GUI where they can command the aircraft. This article goes into a bit more detail about how it works: https://www.flightglobal.com/airframers/with-tesla-and-space...

Super awesome. Is ITAR required?

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#66

Post by sokoloff »

ertemplin wrote: post #18
java-man wrote: post #2

It's only a matter of time. However, how will the robotic plances integrate with existing voice-based air traffic control? Would there be a new digital channel, or the planes would it use an on-board voice recognition and synthesizer?

If the airplane isn't in the clouds and is below 18,000 feet MSL the pilots are still responsible for seeing and avoiding other traffic. There are a lot of places in the USA that don't have ATC radar coverage, so traffic separation is based almost entirely on see-and-avoid and cloud distance laws for VFR pilots. The ATC problem is probably the easiest one to solve, and there are already some solutions in use like D-A…

If that airplane isn't in clouds and is at/above FL180, pilots are still required to maintain vigilance to see-and-avoid other traffic. It's true that positive separation is also provided by IFR rules in class A airspace, but any time you're in visual conditions, you're expected to see-and-avoid.

FAR 91.113.b: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.113

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#67

Post by Guest19023892 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #54
oliveshell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, maintaining straight and level flight— i.e., not falling out of the sky— is the easiest part of flying an airplane. Computers have been good at that for a while; in fact, that’s how airline flights are controlled these days during basically all of cruise flight (by autopilot). Takeoff and landing are the tricky parts. (I say this as someone who’s firmly on the skeptical side of the spectrum regarding the…

Takeoff and landing in rough conditions are tricky. Takeoff and landing when the weather is fine is already a solved problem. So is taxiing. https://newatlas.com/aircraft/airbus-attol-autonomous-airlin...

What's the advantages of a human compared to a computer for landing in rough weather? I would think it's a fairly logical problem. Wind is rotating the plane left, need to move the stick right. Wind is pulling the plane up, need to slow down or push the stick forward, etc. Need to make adjustments past safe levels or can't keep the plane level enough means it's too rough and the landing needs to be aborted. In my mind, it seems like the thing that's perfect for a computer. It can instantly take into consideration hundreds of precise measurements, sensors, and history, and make corrections for the precise amounts. A human has a much slower reaction time and can't make adjustments with the same degree of precision. I feel like a computer could correct a quick gust of wind before a person even has time to move their hand.

Compared to a self-driving car where you have all sorts of situations that require complex analysis, like trying to determine if that's a person lying on the highway or an empty garbage bag, this seems like it should be a walk in the park.

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#68

Post by kube-system »

hnarn wrote: post #53
nradov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handling mechanical failures and other in-flight emergencies are the tricky parts.

That depends on your definition of "tricky". If you mean something that requires human intelligence, I would say it's the complete opposite. More or less the first thing pilots start doing during an emergency is to follow lists, it's all very procedural and most failures have been predicted in advance, as well as what would need to be done to resolve them, or at least eliminate the immediate threat -- and if these pr…

The tricky part is not decision making, but sensory awareness.

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#69

Post by Scoundreller »

marcosdumay wrote: post #39
oliveshell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, maintaining straight and level flight— i.e., not falling out of the sky— is the easiest part of flying an airplane. Computers have been good at that for a while; in fact, that’s how airline flights are controlled these days during basically all of cruise flight (by autopilot). Takeoff and landing are the tricky parts. (I say this as someone who’s firmly on the skeptical side of the spectrum regarding the…

There are landing procedures where the pilot simply follows the machine instructions for a long while already. And it works perfectly well where it's available. Also, the take-off being easier, it's not conceivable that a machine couldn't do it. The reason there is no such machine today is exactly because it's easier, so pilots never need any help. Instead, the hard part isn't flying. it's all the things an airplane…

That’s one thing that boggles my mind about airports: it seems like they’re all designed from the ground-up as if it’s the first airport ever built. Terminals too.

I get that the biggest airports have grown organically, but I’m surprised a city building a new terminal or airport (Berlin anyone?) can’t order a standard proven design like they’re building a McDonald’s or Holiday Inn.

Re: FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

#70

Post by supernova87a »

My understanding was that the autonomous part is not really the barrier at this point. After all, military drones fly around the world already (for 10 years) and there are strong analogues in civilian flight/aircraft.

The problem is "airspace integration", i.e. how does an unmanned aircraft communicate with other pilots, ground, etc. and what are the rules (right of way, visual separation, etc) with planes in lower classes of airspace.

That problem has also been around for 10 years, and I would say nearly no progress has been made on that front.

If there were progress on that (some kind of regulatory solution/certainty), it would unlock a whole lot of activity here.

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