Surely the robot needs software to run itself *and* land planes? That's double the effort surely?
Robot lands a 737 by hand, on a dare from DARPA
An outfit called Aurora Flight Sciences is trumpeting the fact that one of its robots has successfully landed a simulated Boeing 737. Aviation-savvy readers may well shrug upon learning that news, because robots – or at least auto-landing systems - land planes all the time and have done so for decades. Aurora's excitement is …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 09:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
The human world is built around human interfaces. Once you have the design that can see and interpret the visual information that we can, hear the audible clues, and manipulate the world as we do with our hands and feet you have a design that can automate anything a human can control....... probably very very badly at first.
Hopefully from a robotic point of view flying a plane is mechanically no harder than opening a door.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 16:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Hopefully from a robotic point of view flying a plane is mechanically no harder than opening a door."
Except for the minor point that said robot needs input. They mention machine vision but I'm a bit suspicious about this and unless machine vision has progessed in leaps and bounds in the last few days I'm wondering exactly how many of the dials, screens and switches it can actually read and how much training it required to be able to read tbe ones it can.
Oh , and "sitting in the co-pilots seat" seems to be a euphamism for ripping the seat out and bolting a bot in its place. Hardly a 5 minute job. I imagine it would be somewhat simpler to plug in an upgraded autopilot board that could do the job itself.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 07:47 GMT Baldrickk
Re: Huh?
It will still need to be customised for every type of plane, as they are all different with different characteristics - even moreso with a robot rather than fly by wire, as not only do the planes handle differently, the controls will be in different places in different cockpits...
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 07:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Huh?
Customised, yes, but independently of fiddling with the fly-by-wire flight control systems themselves. Its not a free job, but far simpler than changing fundamental software components of the aircraft. This is sensible if a retrofit is required.
New aircraft could well have the software built-in and not require "protuberances" to operate the flight controls though.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 14:24 GMT JohnG
Re: Huh?
"Customised, yes, but independently of fiddling with the fly-by-wire flight control systems themselves. Its not a free job, but far simpler than changing fundamental software components of the aircraft."
I don't think so. Fly by wire systems already have all the sensor inputs and control outputs necessary to fly the aircraft. All that is needed is some software to use those inputs and outputs, whilst observing flying rules (Try to land on a runway, ideally, the correct one. Don't land inverted. You need wheels to land.) A robot has to use a camera with optical recognition and mechanical manipulators - which will inevitably introduce lag and inaccuracies/errors - and then it has to have the same software to actually use inputs and flying rules to make outputs. Any system would have to be passed for use on each aircraft type.
P.S. In the video, the robot accidentally pushed the control yoke forward, whilst looking at instruments.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 10:06 GMT DropBear
Re: Huh?
"I have it on good authority that if you can fly a Sopwith Camel you can fly anything!"
...even a GeeBee Model R...?
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 10:02 GMT DropBear
Re: Huh?
"Well it can't be that hard, meatsacks have been flying different types of aircraft for years."
We can have this discussion again when household robots that can manually wash dishes, operate normal vacuum cleaners and generally fully care for the elderly on their own are ubiquitously common and stupidly reliable. Until then, I'm just going to assume reading this that it's either somehow April the 1st again or lots of important and apparently sane people somehow went start raving mad without anyone noticing.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 14:33 GMT JohnG
Re: Huh?
"It will still need to be customised for every type of plane [...]"
"So? You need to "customise" pilots too. I.e. train and re-train them for every type they are going to fly in."
Yes. You don't have to start from scratch but there are some steps involved in switching between different aircraft types. You can't pass your PPL in a Cessna and fly a 747 the next day.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 16:09 GMT SImon Hobson
Re: Huh?
Pedant alert ...
You can't pass your PPL in a Cessna and fly a 747 the next day.
Actually, yes you can if you have the money. I believe it is technically possible to train for and get your PPL in a 747 - though the difference in cost between the per-hour cost of a light piston single and a 747 would make it a very expensive proposition.
Assuming you took the conventional route to your PPL (SEP(A)), you could still jump in a 747 the next day if you had the money to buy lessons for the type-specific qualification.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 17:30 GMT Cynic_999
Re: Huh?
"
It will still need to be customised for every type of plane
"
It could have the same central "autopilot engine" software for all types, but supplied with different fixed parameters for each aircraft type. The physics of fixed-wing subsonic flight are the same for all aircraft from a two-seat Cessna to an Airbus, only the physical constants (and a few variables such as position & quantity of loaded mass) cause the differences in behaviour. Many of the less significant variables could even be learned by the autopilot literally "on the fly" (auto-tuning). No need for visual recognition or cameras either, the autopilot can have its own set of gyro instruments and radio navigation receivers, and will need only external connections to a couple of aerials and a pitot and static air feed (readily available or easily tapped), and maybe the AoA indicator - though that can be computed from other data so is not strictly necessary except as a cross-check.
The big advantage is that you only need one such autopilot to be able to equip any one of a fleet of different aircraft on demand, rather than fitting every aircraft with a full autopilot on the off-chance that it will one day be needed for operational reasons. The mechanical connections can be engineered so as to easily adjust or have adaptors fitted to suit a wide range of cockpit layouts, so installation does not have to take weeks.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 08:10 GMT Spudley
Re: Huh?
but it is aircraft and manufacturer independent, and can be tested in isolation. much, much easier to deploy, or indeed wrench out of the seat in the event of malfunction. Wrenching is tricky in-flight with software...
The image that springs to mind is Arnie wrenching the JohnnyCab robot.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 09:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Huh?
"no operational advantage I expect."
Worse than that, ignoring the problems of verifying the software running the robot, the actual use of it introduces more points of failure than interfacing directly with the fly by wire system. You now have more possible mechanical points of failure, and the whole thing needs to "fail safe" i.e. it has to be mechanically impossible for it to get stuck irreversibly against the controls in a way which will cause the aircraft to crash. And then of course, there's the *more* complex task of writing the software for the thing.
Being charitable, it's a fun project, and kudos to the team for building it and making it work, but ultimately, I really hope it never makes it into a real aircraft.
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Wednesday 17th May 2017 19:03 GMT Mark 85
Re: Huh?
The 737 is a very common plane and was probably easy to "borrow" one for the test. I would think that the fly-by-wire automations were turned off to allow the robot to do it's thing with human oversight. Or perhaps the on-board system was allowed to be active to compare notes, so to speak.
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Friday 7th July 2017 10:03 GMT Chris 239
Re: Huh?
Acutally watching it the robot used the auto pilot to do the job - the only actual flight controls it used were the flap lever ( because there is no auto flap on this type) and the reverse thrust levers (after it's touched down) every thing else was done with the auto pilot and auto throttle controls (the knobs and buttons just below the glare shield).
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