Forum 360: Machine Intelligence & Autonomy Meet Aviation: Toward Safer & More Accessible Skies 15 January 2021 1400 - 1515

A cross-domain topic that focuses on AI/autonomy for both unmanned systems and general aviation (GA), especially within today’s context and the post COVID-19 world. Aviation is still in infancy on integrating machine learning/AI and autonomy. Over a number of years there have been ongoing efforts on robotic co-pilots, fully autonomous cargo planes, ground collision avoidance (auto GCAS), automated landing of GA aircraft, etc. This provides an excellent backdrop for a discussion of the acceleration of machine intelligence integration in the mainstream aerospace world. Further aspects to consider: the unmanned aviation technology and policy community is not taking advantage of the massively reduced sky traffic to try out new things right now. General aviation, charter, and Part 91-K flight operations should see a big boost from the current situation. Getting costs to a reasonable point will require going to one pilot initially, to remote pilots with one pilot per aircraft evolving to M pilots controlling N aircraft, and eventually to no pilots on board. The demand for that may have been created, or at least accelerated by COVID-19. .

Moderator
  • Zohaib-Mian Zohaib Mian
    Head of Systems Engineering, Alphabet/Loon
  • Eric-Spero Eric Spero
    Lead, Systems Engineering for Autonomous Robotics Integration, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Army Research Laboratory
Panelists
  • Natalia-Alexandrov Natalia Alexandrov
    Principal Investigator, NASA Langley Research Center
  • David-Hansell David Hansell
    Global Head, Aviation Regulation and Policy, Loon, LLC
  • Andrew-Lacher Andrew Lacher​
    Senior Principal, Aerospace Research and Autonomous Systems, Noblis
  • Sanjiv-Singh Sanjiv Singh
    Chief Executive Officer, Near Earth Autonomy; Consulting Professor, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Arne-Stoschek Arne Stoschek
    Project Executive, Machine Learning and Autonomy, @ Acubed, an Airbus Innovation Center