Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a pilot using artificial intelligence (AI), which they claim can autonomously navigate crowded airspace.
According to the team, the AI pilot can avoid collisions, predict the behaviour of other aircraft, track air traffic and communicate via radio with controllers.
The idea behind the study was to develop an AI pilot which performs indistinguishably from a human one.
“This is the first AI pilot that works in the current airspace,” said Sebastian Scherer, an associate research professor at the university and a member of the team.
“I don’t see that airspace changing for UAVs.
“The UAVs will have to change for the airspace.”
The AI was designed to use six cameras and a computer vision system to identify nearby aircraft. It was developed with speech recognition technology to process natural language so it can understand incoming communications and send out messages using speech.
The team behind the pilot used data collected from two airports, including air traffic patterns, images of aircraft and radio transmissions, to ensure implicit coordination.
Developing autonomous flight capabilities could help other aircraft to perform a range of applications without a human pilot. These aircraft, however, will still need to fly in an airspace with small aerial vehicles, such as drones.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NASA have suggested the division of urban airspace into corridors with specific designations, which, according to the team, has the potential to obstruct the flight of critical vehicles and create air traffic jams.
Those behind the AI pilot claim that developing an autopilot to operate at a high-altitude, crowded and pilot-controlled airspace has challenged the aviation industry so far, but that this new tech is designed for seamless integration in visual flight rules (VFR) airspace.
The AI has not yet been tested with a real aircraft but has reportedly performed well in simulations.
Some of its commercial uses include autonomous deliveries and passenger services.
