Robotic Co-Pilots
April 7th, 2015Via: New York Times:
This summer, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon research organization, will take the next step in plane automation with the Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System, or Alias. Sometime this year, the agency will begin flight testing a robot that can be quickly installed in the right seat of military aircraft to act as the co-pilot. The portable onboard robot will be able to speak, listen, manipulate flight controls and read instruments.
The machine, a bit like R2D2, will have many of the skills of a human pilot, including the ability to land the plane and to take off. It will assist the human pilot on routine flights and be able to take over the flight in emergency situations.
A number of aerospace companies and universities, in three competing teams, are working with Darpa to develop the robot. The agency plans for the robot co-pilot to be “visually aware” in the cockpit and to be able to control the aircraft by manipulating equipment built for human hands, such as the pilot’s yoke and pedals, as well as the various knobs, toggles and buttons.
Ideally, the robots will rely on voice recognition technologies and speech synthesis to communicate with human pilots and flight controllers.
“This is really about how we can foster a new kind of automation structured around augmenting the human,” said Daniel Patt, a program manager in Darpa’s Tactical Technology Office.
