Forum 360: Machine Intelligence & Autonomy Meet Aviation: Toward Safer & More Accessible Skies 16 January 2021 00:30 - 16 January 2021 01:45

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
  • Eric Spero Eric Spero
    Lead, Systems Engineering for Autonomous Robotics Integration, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command
Panelists