DARPA Developing the Ultimate Auto-Pilot Software 75
coondoggie (973519) writes "Call it the ultimate auto-pilot — an automated system that can help take care of all phases of aircraft flight-even perhaps helping pilots overcome system failures in-flight. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will in May detail a new program called Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) that would build upon what the agency called the considerable advances that have been made in aircraft automation systems over the past 50 years, as well as the advances made in remotely piloted aircraft automation, to help reduce pilot workload, augment mission performance and improve aircraft safety."
Re:This announcement is different because... (Score:2, Interesting)
Firstly, it is DARPA... so we are not just talking about civilian applications (although that will surely follow) but we are talking about the wide scale military and civilian application of technologies that various military and aeronautical platforms (think Space Shuttle) have possessed for years.
Secondly, it is DARPA... so we are talking about spending billions of tax payers money to duplicate civilian efforts in the hope that the military industrial complex can trickle down these benefits to civilian ap
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Funny that you should mention both Boeing and Airbus, as the two companies have almost opposing views on flight automation.
Boeing feels like the pilot should be in full control of the plane, with the autopilot just there to make the job easier.
Airbus, on the other hand, treats the pilot as if they were only a legal requirement, and designs it's planes to completely fly themselves, to the point where the autopilot will actually try to override the human pilot if it thinks the pilot's actions are dangerous.
Tr
Re: (Score:2)
While this is sort of true (you can turn off flight laws in a Airbus), it's not a bad thing. We don't know which approach is better - or if indeed either approach is always better or worse. It's a large scale experiment.
And since both Airbus and Boeing aircraft rarely plummet to the ground, a rather successful one. Yes, there can and should be improvements but the jury is out.
The turn of events that caused AirFrance 447 might well have been interrupted with a Boeing autopilot system. Conversely, the idi
Let's remember one thing here . . . (Score:3)
Coincidence? I don't think so.
OMG! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
After watching all those documentaries on air crashes and how the FAA do the reconstruction of the plane crashes, the biggest improvements for the pilots would seem to be a display system showing the current state of the plane as a 3D model - just like the crash reconstructions, and having the flight deck log and display all the control setting changes along with times in the same way that the reconstruction does. That would catch simple things like pilots switching off the autopilots merely by moving the c
Re: (Score:2)
When things are going bad, they tend to go bad quickly. Not the time to punch up the videogame. Remember the pilots are trying to do lots of things.
The reason why you can reconstruct an incident like this is that you can spend literally years going over every little detail. That's an advantage that the pilots certainly don't have.
Re: (Score:2)
Thats what was flying Flight 370 !!
Shall we call it Flight S/370, then?
Pilots crash planes (Score:1)
The vast majority of heavy aircraft losses are due to pilots. They are by far the weakest link in the chain. Whether they do something extremely stupid such as hold back the stick in a stall (Air France) or malicious (Malasian Air) the result is the same. Perfectly good aircraft destroyed.
So engineering them out of the cockpit is the next step. Computers have been able to fly entire flights for decades. Expert systems already out perform people at diagnostics. The pilot is just a redundant point of
Re:Pilots crash planes (Score:5, Insightful)
such as hold back the stick in a stall (Air France)
True, but not the cause for the crash.
Yes, the pilots were the cause for the crash. They even made remarks about the unusual attitude. The situation was obvious, and their ignorance and lack of competence was staggering. Just because the automation was switched off due to an iced probe does not mean the automation is to blame. Ask pilots why they think themselves to be indispensable, and you get some airy stuff on the line of "catch mistakes in the systems that nobody foresaw". And yet, when exactly this happens, they did actively, but unwittingly, do their utmost to crash the airplane in circumstances when continuing the flight uneventfully would have been the by far most likely outcome.
Re: (Score:2)
There already is a lot of automation in fly-by-wire planes where the software is designed to detect faults and automatically compensate for many common failures. Some aircraft manufacturers are even contemplating emulating stabilizer fins by software tweaks to the wings' control surfaces, which sounds a bit scary IMO: so much control on so few actuators/sensors; this would require redefining absolute confidence.
Re: (Score:2)
A couple of pilots once compensated for the loss of wing control surfaces like the rudder by varying the thrust of the engines instead.
Makes me wonder whether the engines shouldn't have pivot mountings so that they can be tilted up and down and even sideways.
Re: (Score:2)
Makes me wonder whether the engines shouldn't have pivot mountings so that they can be tilted up and down and even sideways.
Talk to the V-22 engineers about just exactly how easy it is to do that... It took them literally decades (the original V-22 was designed in the 1960's) to do that and the thing still crashes more than is desirable. Once you make the engine move, you change the aerodynamics of the entire aircraft. Continuously. Not a trivial problem and one that would likely create more problems than it solves.
Re: (Score:3)
The cause of the AF442 mishap is detailed here [bea.aero]. And it says that the pilots flew into an area of weather that they knew about, lost air data, and entered a stall from which the did not recover. You're overemphasizing the pilots role, under emphasizing the mechan
Re: (Score:3)
The report does not argee with you. The report pretty much exclusively talks about the failure of the crew to manage and understand the situation as the causes of this accident. (Page 199, 3.2. Causes of the Accident).
Also, there was *no* mechanical failure. Icing of the Pitot probes is not a mechanical failure. The word "mechanical failure" does not appear in the report.
Re: (Score:3)
It does not use the term "mechanical". I did- because there was more to this incident than just human error.
It cites in that very first paragraph in 3.2 that the pitot tubes icing over is a failure. If you conclude that because it never says "mechanical" (my term as things that go wrong with the aircraft or its systems are referred to in this way) that there was not a aspect of systems being inop in the outcome, then you are using semantics to make your case.
You made the claim that the "pilots
Re:Pilots crash planes (Score:4, Insightful)
The full report on the AF447 flight paints a somewhat different picture than the media described. The pilots were at fault, but not as blatantly as it seemed. A badly designed controls interface hid the airspeed indications (which were correct but so low that the computer flagged them as invalid).
The trim feedback system normally adjusts the elevator trim so that the joystick can be kept centered. In this case, since the aircraft pitch wasn't responding normally, the slightly back stick position caused the trim to continuously put in more up elevator.
The pilots set the correct pitch and full power - in normal conditions this would have worked. The problem here was that since the plane was in a deep stall, the angle of attack was much larger than the pitch angle.
The stall indicator cuts out when the angle of attack and airspeed are out of a reasonable range. At one point early on, the co-pilot started to put the nose down, but the stall alarm turned ON (because the angle of attack was no longer to large as to be invalid), and in response he pitched up again - probably having confused the stall indicator with some other warning. Note that the plane was in the coffin-corner where stall speed and mach overspeed are quite close together.
The pilots *should* have figured this all out, but it wasn't trivial to do so with the information they had available. Airliner accidents are almost always due to a long chain of unlikely problems.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No reason you couldn't have satellite telemetry on aircraft and a room full of test pilots somewhere standing by to assist if there is an emergency. Granted, you can't always guarantee communications, but if there is a failure it would be better to have the seasoned disaster recovery guy at the controls instead of whoever the seniority rules put on the route. Plus, the emergency team isn't limited to two crew members - they can have one guy who does nothing but fly the plane, another guy who does nothing
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is with your scenario is that major plane failure disasters happen so infrequently. Where do you find a room full of 'seasoned' disaster recovery pilots to sit around 24/7 waiting for that to happen. And who pays for it?
They can afford to put them on every plane in the air right now. Paying to have two crews on standby for all the flights in progress won't be a problem. Plus, you'll need people to manage just routine route changes/etc while planes are in flight anyway (not that this would require full manual control or crisis response).
Re:Pilots crash planes (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the most often repeated misunderstandings in aviation: the vast majority of crashes is caused by pilots, so we should replace them with automation since that's much more reliable. Errr... no, not by a long shot.
The vast majority of crashes is due to pilot error because the vast majority of possible crashes due to equipment failures are prevented by the pilots. I am a pilot, have never been in a crash, but have had several autopilot and other failures where, if we had not intervened, the aircraft would have crashed. But of course, all those possible crashes due to equipment failures don't make it into the statistics because no actual crash occurred. It's merely a note in the company's safety magazine for crews (along with dozens of others each month). So when an aircraft does crash (even if it's due to equipment failure), it's usually still considered the pilots' fault, and correctly so, because they should have been able to prevent it.
Take the Turkish Airlines that crashed in Amsterdam. Due to a radio altimeter failure during an automatic approach, the aircraft thought it was directly above the runway and pulled the throttles back, while in fact it was still several hundred feet above the ground. Most crews would have seen the speed decreasing (and indeed, this kind of incident had happened many times before to other crews without causing a crash) but this crew reacted much too late and "caused" the airplane to crash.
Or take the Air France that crashed after the pitot tubes froze up. The automation actually failed so the pilots had to take over. Without pilots, the airplane would have crashed anyway. And here, too, this kind of incident had already happened to other crews multiple times, but each time the crew had handled the situation correctly (even though it was not something that was trained in the simulator or accurately described in the procedures). This time the crew did not handle it correctly, in part because they were confused by conflicting warning messages from the airplane's systems telling them the plane was overspeeding and stalling at the same time. They even got aural warnings when they started to, temporarily, apply the exact correction they needed to meke. The automation was not helping them, but actually working against them and telling them they were wrong when they were, in fact, right.
If you want to have an idea of how reliable automation is, just look at the number of military drones that have crashed so far. Their mission couldn't be simpler: take off, fly over some area, come back and land. They only fly in relatively nice weather, there are vaslty less drones than passenger aircraft, yet there are many more drone crashes than passenger aircraft crashes.
It's certainly a good thing that Darpa is trying to make aircraft automation more reliable, but right now pilots are still by far the most important asset for the safety of an airplane.
Re: (Score:2)
This is one of the most often repeated misunderstandings in aviation: the vast majority of crashes is caused by pilots, so we should replace them with automation since that's much more reliable. Errr... no, not by a long shot.
Many good examples snipped
It's certainly a good thing that Darpa is trying to make aircraft automation more reliable, but right now pilots are still by far the most important asset for the safety of an airplane.
You make a number of good points. Automation is great when everything is going well; the biggest problem then with automated systems is boredom or an unwillingness to use the system because they didn't chose that career to simply sit back and watch gauges. Automated systems, when everything is working as planned can often do better than a human imply because they can take many more inputs and respond to them than a human.
However, when sensors start sending conflicting information automated systems start hav
Re: (Score:2)
Good points. If humans were to be taken out of the loop obviously it will be necessary to change how the automation works, sometimes substantially. Anything that causes an autopilot disconnect, for example, obviously has to be redesigned (well, aside from pilot-triggered disconnects). There may also need to be an increase in redundancies as well so that the plane can remain fully automation even with failures. The algorithms also have to be designed to better handle a lack of sensor input, since all the
Remove the pitot tubes? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's also worth remembering that, as pilots are the last line of defense when equipment starts malfunctioning, when a crash occurs the NTSB often sights "pilot error" for failing to maintain control during an equipment malfunction. It may be that the root cause of the failure was equipment malfunction, but unless a wing falls off the aircraft, the pilot is expected to maintain control of the airplane through all equipment malfunctions.
Anytime I hear about someone talking about making a better autopilot or s
Re: (Score:2)
Autopilots often make things more difficult for a pilot because, in some circumstances, the autopilot simply adds a new workload layer that can sometimes interfere with operations.
That is exactly how we are trained with regard to the use of automation: If its increasing your workload, turn it off. We are encouraged to occasionally fly not only without the autopilot, but also without flight directors and autothrust off. The idea being to maintain proficiency.
Re: (Score:2)
The whole concept is to get the pilot out of the cockpit entirely - they wouldn't be managing the autopilot - it would be managing itself.
Plus, if updates to the plane's mission were made while in-flight, it would be done by a team working from desks. They would have time to properly follow procedures, and wouldn't have long stretches of idle time (it would be like a call center - they just move from one plane to the next).
This would require changes to how we manage planes, ATC, etc in general. However, I
Giving a whole new meaning to the term... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They would have time to properly follow procedures, and wouldn't have long stretches of idle time (it would be like a call center - they just move from one plane to the next).
"Your safety is important to us, all remote pilots are busy right now, please remain on the line..."
Re: (Score:2)
Take the Turkish Airlines that crashed in Amsterdam.
This incident has some similarities to the Asiana crash in SFO. In both cases, pilots failed to recognize FMA's (flight mode annunciation). In Schipol, the autothrust had changed to retard mode (used during the flare) which allows the airplane to slow below ref speed and land. In SFO, they may have disarmed the autothrust instead of disconnected it, the difference being that they bypassed the low speed wakeup function of the autothrust which prevents low energy conditions.
In both cases, pilots lacked under
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to have an idea of how reliable automation is, just look at the number of military drones that have crashed so far. Their mission couldn't be simpler: take off, fly over some area, come back and land. They only fly in relatively nice weather, there are vaslty less drones than passenger aircraft, yet there are many more drone crashes than passenger aircraft crashes.
I hate to reply twice, but I was giving this some thought. How many of these crashes are the result of faulty automation?
Virtually all airliners have redundant everything, especially for critical components like engines. Drones usually don't have these things - if the predator's single engine fails, then it crashes. Sure, they could put two engines on them, but the cost of doing that is higher than the cost of buying a new one from time to time. They're designed to be expendable.
A computer-piloted passe
Re: (Score:2)
> The vast majority of crashes is due to pilot error because the vast majority of possible crashes due to equipment failures are prevented by the pilots.
Before automation, the vast majority of crashes were caused by pilot errors or pilots failing to respond properly to emergencies due to being too tired from flying the plane. Automation lets pilots save most of their energy for when it counts instead of tiring themselves out with routine flight procedures like keeping their hands on the control column fo
Re: (Score:2)
If you know any pilots put this to them and watch the response ;)
WTF does that mean? Am I supposed to react with giddy agreement that my profession is pointless? Using your logic, humans need never do anything that can be automated- surgery, programming, procreation...
No artificial intelligence can replace the versatility of the human mind. Pilots are there for the ability to make decisions under widely varying conditions. The automation is there to lessen the work load.
The vast majority of heavy aircraft losses are due to pilots.
Yeah, and when your idea of the pilot-less cockpit is attained it will be "The vast majority of heavy
Agnogenic systems failure? (Score:2)
Why (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
Why would they use an auto-pilot for an airplane? Shouldn't they use a plane-pilot for planes?
Auto refers to automatic not automobile.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would they use an auto-pilot for an airplane? Shouldn't they use a plane-pilot for planes?
Plane-pilots don't have that emergency reinflation tube just below the belt buckle.
Do you have to inflate it before use? (Score:2)
Having said that, many recent aircraft failures have been caused by the crew and I think fully automatic airliners should be looked at. Or at least keep a hostie around to blow the thing up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah but the problem with human drivers/pilots is that they send SMS messages, update facebook, phone their girlfriends or go crazy and decide to kill their passengers. The engineers who build the vehicles do all those things too, but in an environment where their work can be checked and peer reviewed.
The best mass transit system I have seen is in Kuala Lumpur. It has no drivers. It is faster and more reliable than any other system I have seen.
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt there is a transit system in the world with manually operated doors.
Flying Cars (Score:2)
Not saying it's imminent but perhaps this is a step in the direction of ubiquitous personal flying vehicles that could solve a lot of transportation pr
Re: (Score:1)
Actually, the answer is "yes, but not for a long time"
-You always need to blame a human.
Yes. You blame the company that engineered it, and their insurance covers the liability.
-Flying requires fuel
Fuel can be sythesized from CO2 and energy. Energy from solar, wind, and fission are nearly limitless.
-Legal restrictions
this is largely a restatement of "need a human to blame." laws can change. "public roads" wouldn't need to exist if everyone had a flying car and all homes and places of business had runways
Re: (Score:3)
Cargo ships (Score:2)
I've long thought that it would be good if cargo ships were automated and/or remote controlled. Piloting cargo ships ought to be relatively easy compared to remote piloting drones in combat.
- Crew is valued higher than cargo, so piracy relies a lot on kidnapping crews for ransom. No crew, no crew ransom. That would change the bargaining balance.
- Also, if crews can't manually override the automatic/remote control, then they have no control over the ships course. That would make piracy even more difficul
Re: (Score:2)
I've long thought that it would be good if cargo ships were automated and/or remote controlled. Piloting cargo ships ought to be relatively easy compared to remote piloting drones in combat.
Many are. You set Iron Mike on a course and speed and he follows it. You still, however, need someone on watch to watch for and deal with the inevitable unexpected situation.
Re: (Score:2)
Docking and leaving might require the presence of crews on ships, but crews could be shuttled between their ships and the docks.
Or just use remote telemetry to do these operations. Ships already use harbor pilots who relieve the regular crew when in highly congested areas.
Re: (Score:2)
DARPA would develop things a lot faster... (Score:1)
There is a correlation here. (Score:2)
Improved Aircraft (Score:3)
Protection from pilot error .. (Score:2)