DARPA testing AI co-pilots
DARPA has demonstrated an aircraft autopilot system known as Aircrew Labour in Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS). The autopilot system uses a software backbone that combines open interfaces, a pilot-operated touchpad and speech recognition software, allowing various check-list procedures and safety protocols to be performed more rapidly, safely and autonomously by computers. This is a substantial improvement on current “fly-by-wire” systems.

Yesterday, a turboprop plane took off from a small airport in Virginia that from the outside, looked fairly unremarkable.

But inside the cockpit, in the right seat, a robot with spindly metal tubes and rods for arms and legs and a claw hand grasping the throttle, was doing the flying.

The demonstration was part of a government and industry collaboration that is attempting to replace the second human pilot in two-person flight crews with robot co-pilots that never tire, get bored, feel stressed out or become distracted.

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The Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) project envisions a day when planes and helicopters, large and small, will fly people and cargo without any human pilot on board. Pictured is one of the robotic systems currently being trialled by ALIAS

ROBOT PILOTS Sophisticated computers flying planes aren't new. But the ALIAS robot goes steps further. For example, an array of cameras allows the robot to see all the cockpit instruments and read the gauges. It can recognise whether switches are in the on or off position, and can flip them to the desired position. And it learns not only from its experience flying the plane, but also from the entire history of flight in that type of plane. The robot 'can do everything a human can do' except look out the window, Langford said. But give the programme time and maybe the robot can be adapted to do that too, he said. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/sciencetech/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->

The programme's leaders even envision a day when planes and helicopters, large and small, will fly people and cargo without any human pilot on board.

The programme, known as Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS), is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and run by Aurora Flight Sciences, a private contractor.

With both the military and airlines struggling with shortages of trained pilots, defense officials say they see an advantage to reducing the number of pilots required to fly large planes or helicopters while at the same time making operations safer.

The idea is to have the robot augment the human pilot by taking over a lot of the workload, freeing the human pilot - especially in emergencies and demanding situations - to think strategically.

'It's really about a spectrum of increasing autonomy and how humans and robots work together so that each can be doing the thing that it's best at,' said John Langford, Aurora's chairman and CEO.

Sophisticated computers flying planes aren't new.

In today's airliners, the autopilot is on nearly the entire time the plane is in the air.

Airline pilots do most of their flying for brief minutes during take-offs and landings, and even those critical phases of flight could be handled by the autopilot.

But the ALIAS robot goes steps further.

The robot pilot learns not only from its experience flying the plane, but also from the entire history of flight in that type of plane. Sophisticated computers flying planes aren't new. In today's airliners, the autopilot is on nearly the entire time the plane is in the air

For example, an array of cameras allows the robot to see all the cockpit instruments and read the gauges.

It can recognise whether switches are in the on or off position, and can flip them to the desired position.

And it learns not only from its experience flying the plane, but also from the entire history of flight in that type of plane.

The robot 'can do everything a human can do' except look out the window, researchers said. The ALIAS robot is designed to be a 'drop-in' technology, ready for use in any plane or helicopter, even 1950s vintage aircraft built before electronics.

THE CHALLENGES The robot faces a lot of hurdles before it's ready to start replacing human pilots, not the least of which is that it would require a massive rewrite of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety regulations. Even small changes to FAA regulations often take years to make. Elements of the ALIAS technology could be adopted within the next five years, officials said, much the way automakers are gradually adding automated safety features that are the building blocks of self-driving technology to cars today. Pilot unions, however, are skeptical that robots can replace humans in the cockpit. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/sciencetech/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_2 - ->

The robot 'can do everything a human can do' except look out the window, Mr Langford said.

But give the programme time and maybe the robot can be adapted to do that too, he said.

In other ways, the robot is better than the human pilot, reacting faster and with knowledge instantaneously available, able to call up every emergency checklist for a possible situation, officials said.

It some ways, it will be like flying with a 'co-pilot genius,' Mr Langford said.

'The robot carries in them the DNA of every flight hour in that (aircraft) system, every accident,' he said.

'It's like having a human pilot with 600,000 hours of experience.'

The ALIAS robot is designed to be a 'drop-in' technology, ready for use in any plane or helicopter, even 1950s vintage aircraft built before electronics.

Elements of the ALIAS technology could be adopted within the next five years, officials said, much the way automakers are gradually adding automated safety features that are the building blocks of self-driving technology to cars today

But the robot faces a lot of hurdles before it's ready to start replacing human pilots, not the least of which is that it would require a massive rewrite of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety regulations.

Even small changes to FAA regulations often take years to make.

Elements of the ALIAS technology could be adopted within the next five years, officials said, much the way automakers are gradually adding automated safety features that are the building blocks of self-driving technology to cars today.

Pilot unions, however, are skeptical that robots can replace humans in the cockpit.

Aurora Flight Sciences' technicians work on an Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automantion System (ALIAS) device in the firm's Centaur aircraft

Keith Hagy, the Air Line Pilots Association's director of engineering and safety, pointed to instances of multiple system failures during flights where only through the heroic efforts of pilots able to improvise were lives saved.

In 2010, for example, an engine on a jumbo-sized Qantas airliner with 450 people on board blew up, firing shrapnel that damaged multiple other critical aircraft systems and the plane's landing gear.

The plane's overloaded flight management system responded with a cascading series of emergency messages for which there was no time to respond.

Dan Patt, Program Manager, Tactical Technology Office, Aurora Flight Sciences, stands next to the firm's Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automantion System (ALIAS), which is mounted in the co-pilot seat of a Cessena Caravan aircraft

By chance, there were five experienced pilots on board - including three captains - who, working together, were able to land the plane. But it was a close call.

'Those are the kind of abnormal situations when you really need a pilot on board with that judgment and experience and to make decisions,' Mr Hagy said.

'A robot just isn't going to have that kind of capability.'