The era of robotic pilots is not far away. By the year 2035, it is quite likely that commercial aircraft will be manned by only a single human pilot. The pilot’s function will be to monitor the operations of the fully automated aircraft in flight and take manual control in the event of an automated systems malfunction. Driven by emerging technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), the automation of aircraft systems is moving ahead at full throttle.
Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition, machine vision and cognition. AI provides error-free responses faster than humans. Its use in aviation automation enhances safety margins.
In the early days of air transport, an aircraft flight crew consisted of a captain as the overall commander, a copilot, a flight engineer, a radio officer and a navigator.
Aircraft automation began in 1912, when Lawrence Sperry of the Sperry Corporation developed the first gyroscopic autopilot, called a “gyroscopic stabilizer apparatus.” It used the inputs from several other instruments to allow an aircraft to automatically maintain a desired compass heading and altitude. The key feature of the gyroscopic stabiliser apparatus was that it incorporated a gyroscope to regulate the control surfaces of the aircraft. Lawrence Sperry managed to design a smaller and lighter version of a gyroscope and the device was integrated into an aircraft's hydraulic control system. Using a negative feedback loop, the gyroscope automatically adjusted the control surfaces of an aircraft to maintain straight and level flight.
Today, most modern commercial aircraft have flight management systems (FMS), which are specialised computer systems that automate a wide variety of in-flight tasks, reducing the workload on the flight crew to the point that modern civilian aircraft no longer carry flight engineers, radio officers or navigators. One of the main sub-systems of the FMS is the flight management computer (FMC), which has a large database that is pre-programmed with the GPS co-ordinates of all the waypoints for the routes the aircraft is likely to operate, and airport characteristics data.
There are other automated systems on board the aircraft, such as autoland, autobrakes, auto throttle, air data system, automatic flight guidance, ground proximity warning, airborne collision avoidance systems, windshear detection systems, etc, all of which, through system integration interfaces with the FMS, enable the aircraft to fly the intended route with minimal human pilot intervention.
Full automation in flight requires integration with airborne surveillance systems and airport data. The aircraft’s position, speed, heading, altitude and other data such as fuel remaining on board can be known in real time to ground controllers using the space-based GPS System.
Likewise, airports have to be equipped with ground aid equipment to guide the
