Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I’m not human, but please sit back and enjoy your flight.
The preceding announcement describing a pilotless commercial airline experience is not real — at least not yet.
Many analysts don’t think robotically piloted passenger jets will not be flying the friendly skies until somewhere around 2050 or even later, as the industry contends with regulatory challenges, technology issues, and a somewhat nervous flying public.
Nevertheless, the concept of pilotless planes is gaining altitude.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas discussed the future of autonomous vehicles —including aircraft — during an Aug. 21 podcast entitled “AI Takes the Wheel.”
“The advancement of the state of the art in robotaxis and Level 2, Level 3, Level 4+ autonomy is directly transferable to aviation,” he said.
“There’s obviously different regulatory and safety aspects of aviation, the air traffic control and the FAA and the equivalent regulatory bodies in Europe and in China that we will have to navigate, pun intended. But we will get there.”
Kratos Defense
Research firm: Autonomous flight fast-approaching reality
“Autonomous flight is no longer a distant dream — it’s a fast-approaching reality,” according to Boston Brand Research & Media. “With technology advancing rapidly, pilotless planes could one day become as commonplace as automated metros or self-parking cars.”
The firm said that the foundations were already in place in the form of sophisticated autopilot systems, real-world cargo trials, and successful autonomous demos.
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“The next steps involve overcoming public skepticism, securing regulatory approval, and refining AI to handle the skies with the same calm confidence as a seasoned pilot,” the consultancy said.
That skepticism is a key issue facing widespread adoption of pilotless passenger planes the firm said, noting that industry surveys indicate most passengers today are reluctant to fly without a human pilot on board.
“Safety concerns, unfamiliarity with the technology, and fear of system failures contribute to this skepticism,” the firm said. “Even if data proves that autonomous planes are safer, changing perceptions will take time and education.”
But just as people learned to trust elevators without operators and cars that can parallel-park themselves, one day “we may board a plane with no one in the cockpit, confident in the quiet, precise decision-making of a machine trained to fly,” the firm said.
Joby Aviation, which is developing an all-electric, vertical takeoff and landing — or eVTOL — aircraft to operate as a public air taxi service, on Oct. 28 unveiled a collaboration with Nvidia (NVDA) as the aviation launch partner for the AI kingpin’s new IGX Thor platform.
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“The autonomous systems under development at Joby are poised to complement human intelligence by providing speed, precision and stamina beyond what a person alone is capable of,” Gregor Veble Mikić, flight-research lead at Joby, said in a statement.
“Combining Nvidia’s compute power with our world-class aircraft design, certification and rigorous flight-testing capabilities, we’re enabling a new era of safety-first autonomy in aviation.”
Defense sector goes big on pilotless aircraft
Mikić noted that autonomous cars have showcased the ability to interpret large volumes of data to make split-second decisions.
“For an aircraft, the compute power needed for autonomy is similarly high, but also needs to meet even higher levels of design rigor to achieve certification for operation in controlled airspace,” he said. “In aviation, every calculation must be perfect, and every decision infallible.”
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The defense sector has been a significantly larger market for pilotless aircraft than the commercial sector.
Northrop Grumman (NOC) has built a large new uncrewed aircraft system, dubbed Project Lotus, at the defense-technology company’s scaled composites rapid prototyping facility in Mojave, Calif., Aviation Week reported.
Project Lotus appears to represent Northrop’s candidate for the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft Increment 2 program, which is finalizing requirements for competitive prototypes ahead of a scheduled acquisition process next year.
Increment 2 is the next phase of a program that aims to develop semiautonomous, uncrewed aircraft designed to operate alongside crewed fighters.
U.S. defense company Anduril has begun flight testing its YFQ-44A aircraft, a semiautonomous fighter designed to operate alongside crewed aircraft in the collaborative combat aircraft program, Aerospace Testing International reported.
The YFQ-44A made its first flight on Oct. 31, conducting taxi and flight tests using autonomous systems rather than remote piloting.
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS), which is scheduled to report quarterly results on Nov. 4, formed a strategic partnership with Korea Aerospace Industries intended to integrate crewed and autonomous platforms for reconnaissance, strike and electronic warfare missions.
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