When we fly, we literally put our lives in the hands of the pilots. With average speeds of 900 km/h at altitudes of more than 9 km, what you want is a well trained human being at the controls. And while most systems in modern airliners are automated, there’s nothing like a human pilot watching over them.
That might soon become a thing of the past because a robot has managed to land a Boeing 737 all by itself. Watch it here.
Okay so it was only just a simulator but that thing was eerily good at it. In fact it looked good enough to replace a man! Called ALIAS (Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System), it is currently a military project that is designed to be a ‘drop in, removable kit’ to 'enabling operation with reduced onboard crew.' In other words it can replace a pilot.
In the video above, it manages to use the existing 737 auto-landing system to land the aircraft safely.
Aurora flight sciences
The system uses advanced tech like in-cockpit machine vision, robotic arms to actuate flight controls like flaps and throttles, speech recognition and tablet based user-interface.
Great idea or a terrible mistake? Time will tell.
Aurora flight sciences