Can Unmanned Aircraft Mix With Commercial Planes?

coondoggie writes "The Federal Aviation Administration this week signed a research and development agreement with GE Aviation to come up with a way to safely mix the burgeoning amounts of unmanned aircraft with commercial aviation. With this research the FAA and GE hope to accomplish an aviation first by completing the research to facilitate flight of an Unmanned Aircraft System with an FAA certified, trajectory-based flight management system. Integrating unmanned aircraft into the national airspace will be no easy task. The Government Accountability Office last year laid out the difficulties stating that routine unmanned aircraft access to national airspace poses technological, regulatory, workload, and coordination challenges."

Comments

No.

[RobVB]

I like the comforting feeling of knowing there's a pilot in the cockpit.

Re:No.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I like the comforting feeling of knowing there's a pilot in the cockpit.

I like the comforting feeling of knowing there's a pilot in the cockpit of the planes flying OVER me when I'm down here on the ground.

Re:No.

[Timothy Brownawell]

I like the comforting feeling of knowing there's a pilot in the cockpit.

Computers don't get heart attacks or fall asleep at the stick.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes the stick itself fall asleep at the computer.

Re:No.

[stonedcat]

But they do become sentient and murder millions of people. Few humans ever do either.

Re:No.

[CannonballHead]

They also aren't particularly innovative or creative, nor can they defend themselves terribly easily...

Re:No.

[qwijibo]

Do aircraft have fully autonomous co-computers that can recognize an unexpected fault and take full control of the plane? That's why commercial aircraft have co-pilots. A secondary system running the same code with the same flaws as the first doesn't cut it in this context.

Re:No.

[MichaelSmith]

I like the comforting feeling of knowing there's a pilot in the cockpit.

Computers don't get heart attacks or fall asleep at the stick.

They have their own failure modes. One issue is that modern commercial aircraft are subject to similar failure modes even when piloted by a human being.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. You're simply scared of change. In 50 years time you WILL hear many people saying "Holy shit, they let PEOPLE fly these planes? I feel much safer without a human pilot."

Re:No.

[davester666]

Hitler and Stalin nailed one of those things. Not so much the other one.

Re:No.

[Jake73]

You haven't met enough pilots.

Re:No.

[FooAtWFU]

You: "No. I like the comforting feeling of knowing there's a pilot in the cockpit."

TFA: "Because unmanned aircraft have never routinely operated in the national airspace system, the level of public acceptance is unknown. One researcher observed that as unmanned aircraft expand into the non-defense sector, there will inevitably be public debate over the need for and motives behind such proliferation."

Looks like your attitude is one of the things they'll be studying, hmm?

Re:No.

[Deadstick]

Computers don't get heart attacks or fall asleep at the stick.

Or figure out how to make a successful landing in a river when the engines fill up with birds...

rj

Re:No.

[jamstar7]

TFA: "Because unmanned aircraft have never routinely operated in the national airspace system, the level of public acceptance is unknown. One researcher observed that as unmanned aircraft expand into the non-defense sector, there will inevitably be public debate over the need for and motives behind such proliferation."

I'm wondering why there's a need for drones to interfly commercial airspace here in the US, especially when that blog also had an article about the Air Force wanting to give drones enough machine intelligence to decide for itself whether deadly force is warranted. What could possibly go wrong with that? Are the new drones gonna be used in the much-publicised 'War' On Drugs or something?

Re:No.

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

GIS data collection such as aerial surveying like the "Bird's Eye View" on Bing or 7cm or smaller resolution for overhead views, high resolutions that satellites can't achieve. They also would have the ability to collect when their is cloud cover as drones can fly under the cloud cover. Throw the GPS coordinates on to an SD card with something like Ardupilot and have it fly the route taking images that can then be stitched together. GE as a huge defense contractor would primarily just want to sell them for spying on citizens. Why we need full size UAVs when radio control UAVs can accomplish anything you'd sanely want accomplish without a human at the controls is beyond me. I could see drones being used to fertilize crops but you'd be nuts to let large tanks of anhydrous ammonia fly around on their own.

Re:No.

[badboy_tw2002]

I'm only speaking second hand, but I thought most flight control systems we're triple buffered with redundant, reimplemented systems to avoid this.

Re:No.

[bschorr]

Sure, computers are completely reliable and never fai#&#(@(@ NO CARRIER

Re:No.

[cyphergirl]

I spent a brief part of my career writing code for avionics. A serious amount of testing goes into the code before the FAA will certify it to fly; you have to prove that you've executed every line of code, that every line of code does exactly what it is supposed to, and that there are no paths that are never executed. But even with all of the testing we did, we would occasionally get a value we completely didn't expect and crash the demo box. Lucky me, I was just writing code to encrypt ACARS... nothing that actually made the airplane fly (or not fly...).

My husband and I were at AirVenture checking out EFIS sytems for an experimental aircraft that we're building. We managed to crash one of them not once, but three times, just by pushing a few buttons in rapid sequence. Granted, they were experimental and didn't go through all of the testing, but every now and then you also hear about a certified system resetting in flight. In fact, a friend of ours recently had his certified EFIS go into a reboot loop while he was in flight due to a faulty database update; luckily he was flying VFR and had backup gauges, so he didn't need the EFIS. There are procedures in place to handle this, but there are also people present in the cockpit to follow them. This is why fly-by-wire scares me, and why it's still a Very Good Thing that commercial aircraft have co-pilots and manual flight systems as backups. There's just too much that can go wrong to be able to trust everything to fly itself -- sometimes you really need a human in the mix thinking "outside of the box" when the feathers start to fly. I think the Sioux City incident is a major example of that, despite how long ago it was.

Re:No.

[AnyoneEB]

A secondary system running the same code with the same flaws as the first doesn't cut it in this context.

That's why you build the computer systems with triple modular redundancy. Basically, you make three different systems which have the same job and they vote.

Of course, a human or two as another layer of redundancy is often a good idea.

Re:No.

[Obfuscant]

Why we need full size UAVs when radio control UAVs can accomplish anything you'd sanely want accomplish without a human at the controls is beyond me.

Radio control suffers from the same issue as fully automated UAVs.

The issue with them being in the airspace system is that much of the system is based on VFR -- visual flight rules. See and avoid. And even the parts that are always ATC controlled (Class A and B airspace) rely on see and avoid when the weather is clear. (It is not uncommon at all for an airplane approaching a very busy airport to be told something like "traffic 2 oclock, two miles", and then when the pilot says he has it in sight he's told "follow that aircraft".)

A radio control pilot cannot see anything other than what his camera is looking at right now. He can't swivel his head and see the Cessna 182 bearing down on him from the left as easily as a real pilot can.

I don't doubt that fully automated aircraft are at the level of sophistication where they can operate in a fully controlled environment, but we don't have many of those, if any. And we don't have ANY method I know of for ATC to issue emergency instructions to an unpiloted UAV, so they become essentially uncontrolled controlled systems.

Re:No.

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

Please let me know when a full size plane is planning on flying at an altitude of 100 feet with a velocity of a few meters per second like a Multiplex Cularis UAV can, a fully foam airframe with a mass of a few kilograms with full gear. I'd like to be a long ways away.

Re:No.

[xquercus]

I could see drones being used to fertilize crops but you'd be nuts to let large tanks of anhydrous ammonia fly around on their own.

But large tanks of aviation fuel flying around on their own isn't nuts?

Re:No.

[Obfuscant]

Please let me know when a full size plane is planning on flying at an altitude of 100 feet with a velocity of a few meters per second...

You mean like nap-of-the-earth flying practiced by military pilots in their jets? I don't know if they go as fast as "a few meters per second", but I hear they go a couple hundred miles per hour. I also hear it is quite an awesome sight to have a few scream by 100 feet overhead, and considering how few prang while doing this it sounds like it's safe to be on the ground underneath.

Of course, TFA is about mixing UAV and regular aircraft in regular airspace, so "100 feet AGL" is out of context for this discussion. The flight rules for populated and sparsely populated areas, and even the unpopulated "500 feet from buildings or people", put aircraft quite a bit higher than 100 feet, unless you happen to be standing underneath the approach end of a runway. If you are standing there complaining about the aircraft passing overhead, perhaps you should move?

Re:No.

[Dare nMc]

Are the new drones gonna be used in the much-publicised 'War' On Drugs or something?

They have been using drones for at least 6 years for this already on US soil (AZ, TX, NM), one of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbit_Hermes_450 is big enough to cause troubles already, but smaller ones seam more common.

Granted these are all backed up by human pilots ready to take over. And are small enough/slow enough/in low population density areas, that it is unlikely to cause deaths, assuming they don't interact with something bigger first.
Also I assume no large airport interactions are required.

Re:No.

[dotgain]

When I was a boy, I told my father, "Dad, when I grow up I want to be a pilot like you"

He said, "Son, you can either be one or the other"

Re:No.

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

I'm complaining that FAA severe regulations for radio control UAVs are absolutely stupid.

Re:No.

[RobVB]

Well yeah, in 50 years time. I look forward to cars driving themselves as well, but the technology just isn't ready yet. For now, people are still better at handling the unexpected.

Re:No.

[RobVB]

I was picturing something like an Airbus A-380 with 800 people in it and a red blinky Captain light singing Daisy, Daisy to calm the passengers down when they hit turbulence. I'm sure it won't come to that just yet.

But hey, at least we're publicly debating!

Re:No.

[defireman]

[quote]I'm wondering why there's a need for drones to interfly commercial airspace here in the US, especially when that blog also had an article about the Air Force wanting to give drones enough machine intelligence [networkworld.com] to decide for itself whether deadly force is warranted. What could possibly go wrong [ctrlaltdel-online.com] with that? Are the new drones gonna be used in the much-publicised 'War' On Drugs or something?[/quote] The last thing we need in the military is a pacifist drone that becomes a Conscientious objector on the battlefield. Letting machines decide for themselves is a bad idea, what if they behave unpredictably?

Re:No.

[thenextstevejobs]

Are the new drones gonna be used in the much-publicised 'War' On Drugs or something?

There's a war on drugs in my apartment right now. And I am winning

Re:No.

[zippthorne]

Sioux City is remarkable in that the solution was thought of during the event. Pilots train so that emergency procedures are reflex, so most of the time you don't get something like that. In fact, I'm aware of only two events where new doctrine was invented during the event to deal solve a mechanical problem in an aircraft. Sioux City and Apollo 13.

But.. in the sioux city case, a good computer could have that doctrine programmed in (if a programmer thought of it) and a really good computer would have discovered it on its own. " Just" a matter of knocking some terms out of the state machine, and some way of evolving new coefficients without destroying the airframe or encountering terrain.

Most of the time, the pilot is just a computer that can't download updates. It's a simple matter that the "bandwidth" of training is rapidly being approached by the bandwidth of swapping a SSD. When it is exceeded, only emotion will keep pilots in the seats, whether commercially or thrill seekers.

Re:No.

[blackraven14250]

Just pointing one thing out: Military guys train to do that shit. Beyond the experience of the controller, we also have something interesting going on right now: we hardly have working cars that drive themselves. Those are moving in two dimensions. Do you really think it's a good idea to throw up a bunch of UAV's in crowded space so soon?

Re:No.

[jamstar7]

You mean like nap-of-the-earth flying practiced by military pilots in their jets? I don't know if they go as fast as "a few meters per second", but I hear they go a couple hundred miles per hour. I also hear it is quite an awesome sight to have a few scream by 100 feet overhead, and considering how few prang while doing this it sounds like it's safe to be on the ground underneath.

You mean, as slow as a few meters per second. 3 meters per sec is only 10.8km/hr. You could jog faster than that. Now for a full sized plane to be able to do that, it'd be tricky. 10.8 kph is WAY below stall speed for most planes I've heard of...

Re:No.

[negRo_slim]

we hardly have working cars that drive themselves. Those are moving in two dimensions.

But those encounter far more obstacles and terrain variance than one is likely to find in the atmosphere.

Re:No.

[Martin Blank]

Airspaces Class A through D are always controlled. If you're a pilot in Class D airspace around a small airport, you must have radio contact unless your radio is out, and even then you're expected to follow light gun signals unless you absolutely cannot do so. If you're coming into a very busy airport (Class B), you're not likely to be told to follow someone in. TraCon or the tower (depending on exact location) will provide separation, calling for altitudes and airspeeds.

A pilot of a UAV could be provided with a helmet tied into a moving camera, or else a suite of cameras whose images are stitched together, and thus be able to see that approaching Cessna. It's not that hard to do, especially when you combine modern awareness systems into the mix. I fly a Cessna 172 G1000, and I know where aircraft are around me most of the time. It can get a little shaky down on the deck because radar coverage isn't always as good (depending on where the radar itself is located), but above a few hundred feet AGL in SoCal and its hilly and mountainous terrain, I'm usually aware of every plane in the surrounding 15 miles, with details including its altitude relative to me and its heading, both displayed on the screen. Given the summer haze, it's a very nice feeling to be looking for traffic and yet know that the other guy is likely to miss you by two miles even when you're at the same altitude.

Re:No.

[russ1337]

The FAA approach to aircraft software is loosely as follows (refer FAR 25.1309 as a starting point):

- When building the aircraft, as part of a wider safety program a System Safety Assessment is carried out on the system in question - This may be in accordance with SAE ARP 4754

- The SSA determines the required 'Design Assurance Level' of the system in question. - i.e a 'fly-by-wire' flight control is likely level A, and an inflight entertainment system might be level E.

- The system is then built, and the software developed using a suitable software lifecycle process (such as IEEE 12207).

- The Software is developed against an 'Assurance Standard' - most likely DO-178B. This requires various things to happen depending on the 'Level' of assurance required. If it is level A software (i.e for a flight control system), then there are lots of development and test requirements required (e.g full high-level requirement trace to low level requirements to hardware, with independence. - and full code coverage with testing of all inputs and outputs in every iteration). For something like an in flight entertainment (Level E), there are very little code / test requirements (to meet FAA regs - not passenger satisfaction!)

The FAA credit the (quite robust when followed) DO-178B process as the reason for so few software related accidents. Many examples of aircraft accidents the media attribute to 'software fault' is usually a hardware error providing incorrect input. - or a result of poor requirement definition up front.... (such as software had no requirement to disregard erroneous Angle of Attack data, causing severe pitch problems in an airbus.)

If you get into it, the FAA regulations around software are pretty safe. If you're in doubt, contact your local D.E.R.

Re:No.

[russ1337]

My current role is verifying compliance of DO-178B artefact's... I hear you.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the point. We're talking about unmanned aircraft, not autonomous ones.

Unmanned = human pilot not in the plane.

Re:No.

[Turiko]

wow, i've never heard about a case where both pilots fell asleep/got heart attacks at the same time.

Re:No.

[Aviation Pete]

Why we need full size UAVs when radio control UAVs can accomplish anything you'd sanely want accomplish without a human at the controls is beyond me.

The full size UAV must be part even of a remotelly piloted one. There must be a failure mode if the radio connection is lost. In military airspace, you either land on a chute or crash in that case. This is not an option in civilian airspace, where people on the ground might be hit. The probability of that to happen must be demonstrated to be below 10^-9 per hour of operation.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers also aren't perfectly coded, are not perfectly secured, are not immune to EMPs (would probably still affect the plane), are not able to glide a plane when there is a fuel/power problem.

Re:No.

[Big Hairy Ian]

If you read the Wiki page on Sioux City flight 232 you'll see that the issue has occurred several times with the crew finding the same solution each time. However on only one occasion has a plane suffered the same catastrophic failure and landed successfully which was the 2003 DHL A320 that lost all hydrolics when it was struck by a misile shortly after taking off from Baghdad Airport.

Re:No.

[amilo100]

The biggest problem isn't falling asleep. The advantage of computers are that they do not smuggle drugs (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1147076/South-African-Airways-crew-arrested-drug-smuggling--SECOND-weeks.html).

Computer pilots also do not get frisky with computer stewardesses in mid flight (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-511677/Probe-launched-air-stewardess-performs-topless-mid-air-striptease-captain.html).

Re:No.

[AlecC]

Interestingly, Boeing seem to have given up on the re-implementing. Apparently, they feel that with the formal specification languages they now have, they can ensure that the implementation matches the specification in an automated manner. The question now is, is the specification sensible. So rather than have two teams implementing the specification, they want twice as many people checking that the specification makes sense.

Re:No.

[AlecC]

I have heard of several cases where both pilots fell asleep. However, they were in cruise, under autopilot control, and no crisis happened. The only reason they are known about is that one of the crew woke up, realised what had happened, and used the anonymous feedback system to report it. I think the system gets several such reports a year.

Re:No.

[rtb61]

Computers are of course much more reactive to the most minor disturbances. A single neutrino passing through a transistor can alter it's state. One bit out in a calculate and like a house of cards, the whole other millions of lines of code falls down. Computers are terribly fragile and unlike missiles, fire once and it either works or not (many many failures have been recorded) unmaned aircraft will start running up tens thousands of hours of airtime and thousands of flights, all waiting for that inevitable systems crash, followed by a real world crash.

Safety first, safety last and safety everything inbetween.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or figure out how to make a successful landing in a river when the engines fill up with birds...

rj

That's what I call a direct hit!

Re:No.

[GooberToo]

When you can safely observe cars drive without collision in every scenario, without sensors or other assistive technology in or near the road will you see AUVs flying which are safe for everyone. This is easily twenty to fifty years away.

Re:No.

[GooberToo]

Looks like your attitude is one of the things they'll be studying, hmm?

Which means we should all be very, very, very, very scared. This is putting the cart before the horse. To say they are studying acceptance is nothing but sheer stupidity. This translates to mean they are studying the acceptance of widespread death and reckless endangerment of the flying public and those who happen to be below.

To be absolutely clear, we are no where near the technology required for UAVs to safely fly and mix with human traffic. A requirement for safe flight is "see and avoid." This requirement becomes impossible to meed by all parties once UAVs enter the mix. Without "see and avoid" you're begging for a daily recurrence of the crash that recently occurred over the Hudson.

Said another way, they want to study the acceptance of extremely dangerous intentions which endangers everyone. This is stupidity for the sake of stupidity. In twenty to fifty years they might have something worth studying.

Re:No.

[alecwood]

Indeed, the human can think creatively. It's true a computer is faster and to a degree better in many things, but not at making creative decisions based on unforseen events. This is why I believe it won't be possible to persuade large sections of the public that autonomous aircraft are a good thing - a ground programmer is unlikely to forsee, and code solutions to, any event beyond the extents of current flight training.

Re:No.

[cyn1c77]

Computers don't get heart attacks or fall asleep at the stick.

Or figure out how to make a successful landing in a river when the engines fill up with birds...

rj

I like how everyone is quoting the few times that human pilots have saved airplanes from crashing. What about the thousands of times that human pilots have made a poor decision and crashed or destroyed their plane? Examples include landing/taking off on the wrong runway, sleeping or not paying attention at the stick, forgetting to follow the checklist, making the poor decision in an emergency situation, giving in to terrorist threats... etc.

Properly programmed computers will always be able to process and respond to a situation faster than a human. Whether or not they respond better than a human is up to the system engineers and programmers who designed the airplane. But don't act like humans are superior beings to have in the cockpit. If they were so amazing on their own, there wouldn't be a whole suite of computers actually driving the plane and giving them instructions, directions and warnings like the autopilot, ILS landing system, stall warning, altitude warning, landing gear warning... etc.

The only reason that humans are still in the cockpit are due to the human inadequacies of aircraft designers and programmers to design a system that does not require them.

Re:No.

[nizo]

Though if there is a major onboard electronics failure (i.e. primary and backup systems both fail), is the pilot going to be able to do much more than just add one more voice to the screams as the plane plummets to the ground?

Re:No.

[nizo]

Though the real question is, if you have an event severe enough to cripple the onboard electronic systems, would having pilots on board make any difference? In other words, the pilots might not add enough to the system to overcome the fact that they are just another link in the chain that can fail.

Re:No.

[nizo]

...people are still better at handling the unexpected.

Though to be fair, human drivers are the cause of about 99% of the unexpected when it comes to car accidents.

Re:No.

[vertinox]

Do aircraft have fully autonomous co-computers that can recognize an unexpected fault and take full control of the plane? That's why commercial aircraft have co-pilots. A secondary system running the same code with the same flaws as the first doesn't cut it in this context.

Why not do what the military does?

Just have the ground take control. Most of the time the joystick controllers let the thing fly on auto to target and then push the button when to fire.

Speaking of which, most commercial airliners are 99.9% run by autopilot these days.

Re:No.

[Deadstick]

Perhaps it would help if you thought of the pilot as a sysadmin.

rj

Re:No.

[xkcdFan1011011101111]

Most spacecraft have at least three processors that each perform every calculation, then the result from each processor is compared against the others'. Of course, this is done because of the possibility of interference by cosmic radiation. I don't know if this type of thinking can be applied to the higher-level role of a co-pilot checking the work of the main pilot.

Re:No.

[xkcdFan1011011101111]

One of the research projects I work on is to develop software that determines how to successfully land a damaged autonomous plane that can't fly straight (ie with a jammed rudder...). I am sure that emergency landing scenarios will be required for autonomous flight control programs.

Re:No.

[Jeprey]

The point isn't that you'll fly as a passenger in an unmanned plane.

Rather it's that thousands of unmanned drones will be flying around manned planes with passengers and will do so unintelligently, with enough agility and speed, and with such a minimal observable profile such that no manned passenger plane human pilot could ever hope to evade a collision even if they actually detected the collision risk

The probability of collision will only be made more inevitable by the shear numbers resulting from radically lower cost of unmanned drones.

See comp.risks

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sioux City event was a hydraulic failure which exactly what a fly-by-wire system is designed to prevent

Re:No.

[Turiko]

exactly... if you're basically just sitting there, doing nothing, then of course they fall asleep... but in action, when they are actually needed, they wake up. Turbluence is often enough to wake someone, and all the "alarms" inside the cockpit that go off when something's wrong would also form a very big alarm clock. In the end, the point was that computer's didn't fall asleep - but humans don't either, at least not when they're actually doing something. If an on-board computer is doing nothing (like on the ground, waiting for refueling/pilot's/watchtower's orders, then wouldn't the system go into stand-by too?

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

BSOD

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, that's why airplane programmers never travel by plane

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't???

I call them lockups, crashes, and hardware failures.

Re:No.

[asynchronous13]

I'm wondering why there's a need for drones to interfly commercial airspace here in the US,

My company demoed our UAS for the FAA related to this new legislation. The problem is that under current FAA regulations, it's illegal to fly UAS's in the national airspace -- I'm not referring to a UAV flying from LA to NY, I'm referring to a UAV flying over an open field on private property several miles from any human habitation. That's still national airspace and is still regulated by the FAA.

The main purpose of this new legislation is to define terms under which UAS's can legally fly in the US -- so that we can at least develop UAS technology legally. Of course, since they are crafting new regulations, they are thinking much further down the line for when the technology may be ready to safely fly with other passenger airliners and such. But the immediate concern is to allow research and development to occur. If things don't change soon, a lot of UAV/UAS research will simply leave the US for country's where it is already legal.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

A single neutrino passing through a transistor can alter it's state

A neutrino? No. Billions of neutrinos are passing through that transistor every second. There are *lots* of neutrinos in this part of the universe, both from the sun and from elsewhere. The interaction cross-section of neutrinos is tiny.

Cosmic rays -- protons (90%) or 4He nuclei (10%) -- can be energetic enough to cause showers of charged particles with much larger interaction cross sections including the ability to flip the state of a small transistor.

Cosmic rays are rarely a real problem in the atmosphere (because the particles strike atmospheric particles and the daughter products do not travel far), and aircraft by definition must operate in the atmosphere. A small amount of shielding is usually sufficient to protect in flight electronics, and 3-way voting systems, ECC, and the like will catch almost any other possible similar problem, precisely to avoid any unexpected actions or inactions by control systems.

Also, "its".

Safety first, safety last and safety everything inbetween.

Safety really requires a realistic view of risks and the trade-offs in various ways of mitigating them.

Your worry about neutrinos crashing aircraft is not realistic.

Re:No.

[Hurricane78]

Yes they have. Thrice so even. There are for example, three landing computers on a Boeing. And those handle the landing when the pilot doesn't. In fact the landing computer usually does all of it. And this works for a long time now. I had a book from the very early nineties, that already included that information.

robots...

[sandmtyh]

can you say SKYnet... hope the unmanned aircraft don't take over!

Where's the issue?

[Ryukotsusei]

I don't see the problem in this. As long as you give the aircraft a simple AI (planes practically fly themselves anyway), and a pre-set route, they should be fairly predictable. A simple in-the-air navigation system for collision avoidance and you're set.

Re:Where's the issue?

[ColdWetDog]

I don't see the problem in this. As long as you give the aircraft a simple AI (planes practically fly themselves anyway), and a pre-set route, they should be fairly predictable. A simple in-the-air navigation system for collision avoidance and you're set.

But OTHER aircraft might not be so predictable. TFA mentions, for example, gliders. They don't file flight plans. They're too small to carry much in the way of radar or other collision avoidance devices. Both UAVs and gliders tend to fly at low altitudes. Traffic can get very complex, very fast.

Besides, there is no such thing as a "simple" collision avoidance system. They're hard to do (mentioned, oddly enough, in TFA).

Re:Where's the issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be all for this provided everyone is issued with video cameras so that YouTube will have lots of cool mid-air wrecks.

Re:Where's the issue?

[MichaelSmith]

My dad flies gliders and glider tug aircraft. One of the problems he told me about is that military pilots like to fly along a rail line close to an airfield where the gliders fly. They don't care that they are cutting through the circuit for an airfield. UAVs would at least follow instructions when transiting through these areas.

Re:Where's the issue?

[recharged95]

Aircraft + AI == no...
Give the unmanned aircraft predictable behavior (i.e. it doesn't "change"), and provide the human driven aircraft with the proper information to react (actionable data from the unmanned craft) and then they can co-exists.
Allow an unmanned aircraft to "figure it out" and react at the same time with a manned craft is putting the manned aircraft's possibly of an unknown consequence at the top of priority queue.

Re:Where's the issue?

[rm999]

He said *simple* AI. I used to work on a large military UAV project - our "AI" was basically a robust straight-line path planning algorithm. Most of the time, it was just a series of way-points that the plane touches.

The most complex part of the whole thing is landing, and I would assume the most accident-prone. I hope unmanned airplanes would have some added safety requirements until their landing is shown to be safe (perhaps their own runways, or a rule that they must land on empty runways in low population density areas).

Re:Where's the issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

great, why don't you just code up some of that flight software in perl for us?

Re:Where's the issue?

[Deadstick]

Both UAVs and gliders tend to fly at low altitudes

Snrk... http://preview.tinyurl.com/obgg5l

rj

Re:Where's the issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you don't see the problem disqualifies you (thankfully) from implementing the "solution"

Re:Where's the issue?

[MindStalker]

So wouldn't it make sense to simply require "all unmanned aircraft must fly at X altitude (10k feet?) unless within X distance of a landing strip."

Re:Where's the issue?

[petermgreen]

Don't they already use autoland systems to land commercial airliners in zero visibility conditions?

Re:Where's the issue?

[stinkytoe]

UAV's also have weight issues. The shadow, the one mentioned in the article, doesn't have any kind of radar, heck it doesn't even have brakes. This is due to the very reliable but fairly weak engine it uses. It's internal computer basically only handles the inertial nav system, the communications, and maintains straight and level flight. The ground control station makes all the actual decisions. If the AV loses contact with the GCS, it's preprogrammed either to return to a predesignated coordinate and fly a loiter pattern (hopefully getting signal back again on the way), or to deploy it's parachute.

In other words, nevermind avoiding another aircraft, this thing will fly into a mountain if allowed to fly itself. I believe that the reason that this aircraft is the one being selected for FAA approval is because of it's reliability at doing it's job even with it's limitations, not because of it's feature set. My unit, and many others, have never crashed one of these UAV's. Other UAV's, even more sophisticated ones, fall out of the sky all the time. While the shadow is not perfect, it is definately going to be the benchmark in the future for how rugged and simple versus how feature rich a UAV needs to be.

Re:Where's the issue?

[Aviation Pete]

I don't see the problem in this. As long as you give the aircraft a simple AI (planes practically fly themselves anyway), and a pre-set route, they should be fairly predictable. A simple in-the-air navigation system for collision avoidance and you're set.

You're right - as long as all systems work as intended. Please look up how often some part of an airliner fails and multiply by the number of systems ( system = sensors, actuators, you name it). That is where the human pilot comes in. He can correct for the flaw and get the plane down safely. Now consider that your UAV needs to know exacly what to do with any number and combination of systems failures conceivable. Do you want to write that code (and be responsible when it screws up) ?

First, your code has to interpret what happens correctly. Next, it needs to have a strategy what to change to compensate. And then it must be able to continue the flight with reduced functionality. Granted, humans get part of this chain wrong occasionally. But your code will need quite a bit of work and testing before it can match the capability of a pilot.

There are UAV control systems which simply assume what state all systems are in and decide by comparing how well each assumption matches with perceived reality. There are ways of compensating for failures - but this approach scales badly with increasing complexity. Autonomous UAVs will happen, but AFAIK we are not there yet.

Re:Where's the issue?

[nmg196]

The problem with gliders is that they like to fly extremely close to each other in thermals. If you fitted any kind of collision avoidance system, it would be going off permanently.

Re:Where's the issue?

[ausekilis]

Just a point of reference--

• UAV - Predator Max Alt: 25,000 ft
• Commercial - 737 Max Alt: 35,000-41,000 ft
• Glider - Sailplane, RV-10. Assuming gliders get pulled behind a smaller aircraft, we're looking at cruise height around 8,000 ft.

Looks to me like the biggest concern is really about cruise height in open spaces, and about regulation of the different aircraft in populated areas. Given that all commercial aircraft have flight paths, the problem gets to be a little less intense since we know where the big aircraft are. Also, using a predator as an example of a UAV may not be the greatest example for what they are trying to get at here, though I doubt seriously they are looking to replace commercial airline pilots within the next few years.

Pilots Union/Lobby?

[Nethemas the Great]

Some how I think the technological aspects will be the least burdensome to implement...

Re:Pilots Union/Lobby?

[TubeSteak]

I think liability insurance is going to be a bigger problem than any union.
Even with triple redundant auto-takeoff/pilot/land systems, we still have humans in the loop.

The end of private aviation

[strangeattraction]

This will mark the end of private aviation as the cost of equipment will be cost prohibitive.

Re:The end of private aviation

[Darkness404]

No, it won't. The one thing about technology is it starts expensive, gets cheaper and cheaper then a new breakthrough comes in and makes things more expensive and the cycle starts again. Just look at hard drives, they started incredibly expensive for a small amount of storage, then they started getting higher capacity and cheaper and cheaper, then the cycle is starting again with SSDs where just a few years ago even 32 GB was -very- expensive.

Re:The end of private aviation

[RetroGeek]

For the first generation or so.

Then it will be put on a single chip and mass produced. Look at cell phones. The first ones used discrete circuits and were big and heavy.

Re:The end of private aviation

[RetroGeek]

2009.08.12 16:32

Re:The end of private aviation

[BiggerIsBetter]

The one thing about technology is it starts expensive, gets cheaper and cheaper then a new breakthrough comes in and makes things more expensive and the cycle starts again.

The one thing about certified aviation electronics is that they generally DON"T get cheaper and cheaper. It's a limited market and the costs involved in certification are high.

this won't spell the end of private aviation, but don't think you'll get a transponder for $100 any time soon...

Re:The end of private aviation

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? Fuck those rich bastards. They can fly the airlines with the rest of us. Ground every fucking Cessna and cut their wings off. Recycle the metal to make something useful to the rest of society. Maybe then we can take helicopter tours near the Statue of Liberty without worrying about yet another rich fuck in a private jet running us over because he's too important to listen to air traffic control instructions.

Re:The end of private aviation

[Anonymous Coward]

case in point. TCAS would have prevented the midair collision in NYC the other day. However, TCAS costs $16K, before installation. It's proven technology. It requires less sophisticated electronics then an XM radio. However, liability laws and FAA red tape make it so expensive that it's out of the reach of GA. GA is dead.

for reference, RQ-4 Global Hawk was built with TCAS, but the FAA won't let it fly with the TCAS unit installed. figure that shit out.

I am a UAV pilot

Re:The end of private aviation

[feufeu]

Then it will be put on a single chip and mass produced. Look at cell phones. The first ones used discrete circuits and were big and heavy.

The market is too damn small for that. Remember this could only work for cell phones, personal computers etc. because there was/is a huge market.

Who cares? Fuck those rich bastards. They can fly the airlines with the rest of us. Ground every fucking Cessna and cut their wings off. Recycle the metal to make something useful to the rest of society. Maybe then we can take helicopter tours near the Statue of Liberty without worrying about yet another rich fuck in a private jet running us over because he's too important to listen to air traffic control instructions.

You'll want to do that with every car as well, don't you ? (Rich) bastards kill people on the road every day i hear.

Re:The end of private aviation

[BiggerIsBetter]

I am a UAV pilot

No offense, but if you don't die when you fuck up, you're an operator, not a pilot.

Re:The end of private aviation

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

I'm a private pilot. I earn about 50k USD per year. I don't think that makes me rich. I know people who spend more per year on boats or drinking.

You nigger.

Auto Pilot

[Drakin020]

Heck with the way things are now, the Auto Pilot can nearly land a plane by itself.

The idea isn't too far off, but to an extent, we already have an "Auto flying" system currently in use.

Re:Auto Pilot

[treat]

Heck with the way things are now, the Auto Pilot can nearly land a plane by itself.

The idea isn't too far off, but to an extent, we already have an "Auto flying" system currently in use.

Nearly land by itself? It's commonly done. The majority of landings for big commercial jets for sure.

Re:Auto Pilot

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just nearly, it can land completely on its own from what I understand. Essentially just program the runway, etc into the autopilot and it's done. Very little flying nowadays is done manually, the pilots are essentially just there in case something goes wrong. In theory an airliner could probably be be programmed from the ground and left to fly on its own. It probably wouldn't be a good idea though, I don't think the airliners are able to handle unexpected situations entirely on their own (yet).

Re:Auto Pilot

[Anonymous Coward]

Google "procerus kesterel" "piccolo cloudcap" "papparazi uav". these can all autoland. we've been flying a kestrel with the ability to consistently hit a 3" circle on the runway with a 100lb plane going 15mph at touchdown. yeah bigger planes go faster, but they have larger control surfaces to compensate...

Re:Auto Pilot

[EchaniDrgn]

Auto landing has been around since the 70s. I remember a full page newspaper ad announcing that "Auto-landing is here." IIRC, in order to be able to prove their Auto-pilot is capable of auto-landing the airlines are required to have periodic auto-landings done. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland

Re:Auto Pilot

[drinkypoo]

Class V autopilots capable of landing a craft are already installed on a couple of the largest airliners, but not all their stops have all the equipment necessary for them to come in on autopilot, and the landings are done by humans anyway. Some miltary aircraft are already quite capable of performing their own landings as well.

Re:Auto Pilot

[bruckie]

Heck with the way things are now, the Auto Pilot can nearly land a plane by itself.

Actually, autopilot can land a plane without any human help, and in some cases it's even required to. I was talking to a pilot for United (friend's uncle) a couple years ago, and he said that in high winds or poor visibility, airline regulations prevent the pilot from landing the plan manually. The pilot is required to allow the autopilot to land the plane. Pretty crazy stuff.

--Bruce

Re:Auto Pilot

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, not only common, but it is mandatory policy with many airlines that the pilot use Autoland to set the plane down in certain wind and visibility conditions. And Autoland is available anytime the pilot wants to use it, however an American Airlines pilot I know told me that he lands himself any time he is permitted to, since takeoff, climbout, and landing are about the only hands-on flying he does any more. In cruise, the Autopilot can fly the plane much more efficiently than a human.

Re:Auto Pilot

[icebrain]

Not just nearly, it can land completely on its own from what I understand. Essentially just program the runway, etc into the autopilot and it's done.

That just entails flight path and speed. Flap settings, brakes, arming the ground spoilers, and extending the landing gear are all still things that must be done manually.

Very little flying nowadays is done manually, the pilots are essentially just there in case something goes wrong.

Not quite. Though pilots often set autopilot soon after takeoff, and certainly use it in cruise whenever possible, landings are almost always done manually whenever possible. Autolandings are only done when required by weather conditions or for currency (aircraft and pilots both have to perform an autolanding every month or so to stay current). Some guys do more manual flying than others.

Autopilots are, in essence, just glorified cruise controls. They don't make decisions or plan flights on their own; the pilots input all of that themselves and make all of the decisions. The autopilot's job is to handle the low-level stuff (keep the wings level, hold this airspeed, etc.) so the pilots can concentrate on keeping aware of their surroundings, avoiding other traffic, navigating, handling other systems, dealing with ATC, and all that.

Self Destruct!

[Anonymous Coward]

The unmanned aircraft should carry a self-destruct radio reciever and manned aircraft would carry a low-power transmitter.

If an unmanned aircraft comes within 1 mile of a commercial flight, it self destructs!

The transmitter could be a cheap $10 piece of equipment.

Problem. Solved. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Self Destruct!

[Renraku]

Actually, that's not too far from the truth.

An unmanned aircraft can survive much higher stresses than manned aircraft, so you could essentially make the unmanned aircraft drop out of the sky rather than collide. Maybe it can pull a 300G turn to avoid the collision. It's sensor package and avionics would react much faster than those controlled by humans.

Re:Self Destruct!

[Fluffeh]

The unmanned aircraft should carry a self-destruct radio reciever and manned aircraft would carry a low-power transmitter.

If an unmanned aircraft comes within 1 mile of a commercial flight, it self destructs!

The transmitter could be a cheap $10 piece of equipment.

Problem. Solved. What could possibly go wrong?

All the unmanned aircraft at airports suddenly go BOOOM!! when the switch is turned on?

Re:Self Destruct!

[treat]

Actually, that's not too far from the truth.

An unmanned aircraft can survive much higher stresses than manned aircraft, so you could essentially make the unmanned aircraft drop out of the sky rather than collide. Maybe it can pull a 300G turn to avoid the collision. It's sensor package and avionics would react much faster than those controlled by humans.

Not according to FAA officials, says the article:

FAA officials also point out that TCAS computes collision avoidance solutions based on characteristics of manned aircraft, and does not incorporate unmanned aircraft's slower turn and climb rates in developing conflict solutions.

Re:Self Destruct!

[couchslug]

"Problem. Solved. What could possibly go wrong?"

Gravity. Aircraft don't vanish when they break up, they scatter. :)

Re:Self Destruct!

[MachDelta]

Huh? Why would unmanned craft have slower climb/turn rates than manned craft? Presumably they would be greater, since there are no squishy bags of meat on board that get uncomfortable while pulling a G or ten.
Anyone know?

Re:Self Destruct!

[MichaelSmith]

Huh? Why would unmanned craft have slower climb/turn rates than manned craft? Presumably they would be greater, since there are no squishy bags of meat on board that get uncomfortable while pulling a G or ten.
Anyone know?

Probably an artificial constraint so that interactions with other aircraft are not made worse. What if the UAV does a sharp turn into the path of a different aircraft, faster than its TCAS can react? Also many UAVs are currently remotely piloted, which leads to slower reactions.

Re:Self Destruct!

[petermgreen]

My guess is that because they don't have to worry about the safety of the occupants and they know the exact weight they would cut the margins finer on the power.

I'm sure you could build a uav with manouverability better than a fighter jet but for the majority of work UAVs do you want a plane that is optimised for other things (low speed flying, range, time in the air etc).

IIRC airliners are designed to have enough power that they can limp home with a whole engine down (though thier range is considerably reduced).

Re:Self Destruct!

[pantherace]

Many of the UAVs currently used are intended for a long-endurance surveillance role. They typically have engines just powerful enough to do that, and lots of wing area to reduce how much fuel it needs to burn.

They are designed to be up for long periods, so if it takes extra time to get there, it's not that big of a deal. The Predator (RQ-1) uses a 115 hp motor. The Reaper (larger Predator) has a 950 hp. For comparison, a Cessna 172 has in the neighborhood of a 160 hp engine, with roughly the same weight and general bounding box, minus the wings being 3/4 (36 vs 48 ft) as wide. The Reaper is about 6 ft longer, and scaled up, but also has a max takeoff weight of about twice the other two. In terms of power/weight, one is worse, the other better than the most produced small manned aircraft, however, I have no knowledge of what else the air frame can handle. I'm thinking that you won't be able to get many Gs out of either one. Typically, you only see those on higher performance, and unstable military fighters. Even there, I think the limit is usually not the pilot, but the structure of the plane.

Oh, and in terms of loss rate on Predators & Reapers: "All told, 55 have been lost because of equipment failure, operator errors or weather. Four were shot down in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq; 11 were lost in combat situations, like running out of fuel while protecting troops under fire." (nytimes) Assuming all delivered aircraft are operational or crashed, 195(p)+28(r)+70(l), or 70/293 for a design completed in the mid 90s, not something I'd want to fly on, even removing the 15 shot down/lost in combat situations (weather, equipment failure are typically bad designs, and operator error can be, 17 actions to fire a missile, apparently including drop down menus?).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17uav.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Re:Self Destruct!

[Aviation Pete]

Huh? Why would unmanned craft have slower climb/turn rates than manned craft? Presumably they would be greater, since there are no squishy bags of meat on board that get uncomfortable while pulling a G or ten.
Anyone know?

The laws of physics don't change just because there is no pilot in the plane to observe them. Higher performance (= climb and turn rate) come at a price. You CAN design an UAV for higher performance, but then it needs big wings and a large engine.

The UAVs mentioned in the article are meant to stay aloft for long periods of time, longer than a pilot would allow them to. This means they are oversized motor-gliders with a small, efficient engine. And those indeed have lower flight performance than even your average Cessna.

Re:Self Destruct!

[FlyingSquidStudios]

The military uses a plane named The Reaper? I realize the point of the drone is to kill people, but they usually aren't that blatant about it. I fully endorse this trend and suggest we release a tank called the You Won't Survive.

Re:Self Destruct!

[Anonymous Coward]

They could, if that was desired, but for most UAVs, the goal is endurance rather than agility. For endurance, you want wings that produce a lot of lift and don't need a particularly powerful engine - most look like they are push-props from what I have seen. They also want stealthy characteristics which means avoiding large control surfaces, reducing agility. Low power, small control surfaces leads to less maneuverable aircraft. I don't see domestic drones having any higher need for speed, though stealth is probably not desirable and larger control surfaces could be added.

ATC...

[Omega Hacker]

I'd love to have them get a proper air-traffic control system in place that can safely handle the load of piloted planes we have, first. Only after that would it be prudent to look at bringing UAVs into the mix.

Re:ATC...

[thrillseeker]

The ATC system we have is generally only stressed in areas where many aircraft congregate - i.e. hubs such as Atlanta, etc. Unmanned aircraft are used from completely different locations. Once airborne in a noncongested area (i.e. not the Hudson Corrider), unmanned aircraft will be a very small percentage of the traffic, and generally at altitudes well above commercial traffic.

Re:ATC...

[Chibi Merrow]

Disclaimer: I'm government contractor scum working for the FAA (and funnily enough, my group is one of the main ones doing the research on integrating UASes into the NAS).

First off... What makes you think our air-traffic control system can't handle the load of piloted planes we have? Do you have something to back up that assertion, or are you just spouting off because all the cool kids rag on the government? Granted, I'm no fan of the the Federal Government, but so far working with the FAA has only made me feel safer about flying. Honestly the NAS is one of the best, if not THE best solution to ATC in the entire world and is quite capable of handling current traffic levels and we're well on the way to handling expected traffic levels for the next 25 years.

With that in mind... We've already been (seriously) studying the UAS problem for over five years and honestly I'd expect another five before we even start to see operational use of the procedures that are being developed in the lab today. This is being given some pretty serious thought and being studied VERY thoroughly...

Who cares, I want driverless cars.

[Timothy Brownawell]

And also something that makes it easier to read or use the computer while being driven around without getting carsick.

Re:Who cares, I want driverless cars.

[RobVB]

And also something that makes it easier to read or use the computer while being driven around without getting carsick.

In Europe, we have trains.

Re:What is the best way to kill myself?

[Anonymous Coward]

Put on a wig, some fake boobs and walk into your local LUG.

Autopilot

[Anonymous Coward]

A great deal of commercial flight is already done automatically -- with autopilot. The only thing the pilot has to do in most cases is tell the aircraft where to go (which can be done using GPS instead). There are already planes that can take off, fly to a destination, and land using GPS and ILS. A pilot is still on board to push the buttons, but that's all he/she does unless there is a problem.

Re:Autopilot

[dominious]

A pilot is still on board to push the buttons, but that's all he/she does unless there is a problem

Exactly. How would your auto pilot respond to a situation like this: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/01/15/new.york.plane.crash/index.html

Re:Autopilot

[hanshotfirst]

Source unknown: "Planes of the future will be completely automatic, with a pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The dog is there to make sure the pilot doesn't touch anything. The pilot is there to feed the dog."

Weddings & Funerals

[Anonymous Coward]

These unmanned planes are especially dangerous to people attending a wedding or a funeral.

I learned this by reading about the war in Afghanistan.

Re:Weddings & Funerals

[Ungrounded Lightning]

These unmanned planes are especially dangerous to people attending a wedding or a funeral.

Especially when the guests are firing into the air in celebration or salute.

Not sure what the BFD is

[oodaloop]

Baghdad is hands-down the most complicated airspace in the world, with multiple simultaneous UAVs at any given time, plus rotary-wing and fixed-wing assets flying constantly, some which are engaging in real-world operations, like dropping bombs. The deconfliction that needs to be done with assets that are collecting, assets that are targeting, assets picking up or dropping off troops, Iraqi commercial aircraft, VIP aircraft, ad nausem is just mind-boggling. The ATC there does this every day. Why is flying one UAV in the US that big a deal?

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[MartinSchou]

The ATC there [Baghdad] does this every day. Why is flying one UAV in the US that big a deal?

Because if something goes wrong in the USA, the airplanes in question will be landing on US citizens and not Iraqi ones.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it was awesome, it only took about an hour to get clearance to fire counter battery at mortar emplacements because a *PRICELESS* UAV *MIGHT* be in the same area. The bad guys had been gone for about 58 minutes by that point.

It's not as good as you think it is. Also shit crashes into each other all the time. The government does a good job of keeping it out of the news.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[Anonymous Coward]

military rules vs civilian entrenched bureaucracy.
 

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[treat]

Baghdad is hands-down the most complicated airspace in the world, with multiple simultaneous UAVs at any given time, plus rotary-wing and fixed-wing assets flying constantly, some which are engaging in real-world operations, like dropping bombs. The deconfliction that needs to be done with assets that are collecting, assets that are targeting, assets picking up or dropping off troops, Iraqi commercial aircraft, VIP aircraft, ad nausem is just mind-boggling. The ATC there does this every day. Why is flying one UAV in the US that big a deal?

I don't think Iraq is significantly infected with NIMBYism.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[MichaelSmith]

Baghdad is hands-down the most complicated airspace in the world, with multiple simultaneous UAVs at any given time, plus rotary-wing and fixed-wing assets flying constantly, some which are engaging in real-world operations, like dropping bombs. The deconfliction that needs to be done with assets that are collecting, assets that are targeting, assets picking up or dropping off troops, Iraqi commercial aircraft, VIP aircraft, ad nausem is just mind-boggling. The ATC there does this every day. Why is flying one UAV in the US that big a deal?

Because deaths in Iraq are easier to accept? Or possibly there is more central control of airspace there.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[girlintraining]

The deconfliction that needs to be done with assets that are collecting, assets that are targeting, assets picking up or dropping off troops, Iraqi commercial aircraft, VIP aircraft, ad nausem is just mind-boggling. The ATC there does this every day. Why is flying one UAV in the US that big a deal?

Because it's military-controlled airspace and they use modern technology, as opposed to civilian-controlled airspace that uses technology that was out of date in the 1960s.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[oodaloop]

If something goes wrong in Iraq, a multi-million dollar platform is lost, US pilots are killed (if it collides with a manned aircraft), and the US has to deal with bad publicity, pressure from Iraqi politicians, recovery of classified equipment in potentially hostile territory, etc. It's not like there are no repercussions if they crash a UAV into something. I understand it's different from flying in the US, but let's not act like theses are problems that no one has ever worked on. I skimmed the article and didn't find any mention of learning from the many years the military has of flying UAVs, let alone in civilian airspace.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[petermgreen]

The military has a somewhat different attitude to safety than civilian operations. The reason for this is pretty obvious, when one of the major risks is being killed by an enemy stuff that reduces that risk is worthwhile even if it increases other risks.

The civilian authorities in (reasonablly) peaceful countries OTOH are working from a different standpoint. UAVs are simply an extra risk to them which does not reduce any other risk. That means LOTs of beuracracy and risk assesment before they are approved.

Plus it won't be just one UAV, they need to make regulations that will accomodate a general increase in UAV use.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[hax4bux]

You might start w/this little NTSB report about a UAV in the national airspace system.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20060509X00531&key=1

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice that the issue was pilot error. That is a very well known case among the UAV industry and we also know that the issue was not technological by nature.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[hax4bux]

Oh, ya. It absolutely was operator error. Completely agree.

If there had been a flight crew aboard, someone might have noticed the engines were shut down and someone might have been able to negotiate an emergency landing.

However, since this was a UAV the operator didn't notice the engine had shut down and of course once below the radio horizon there wasn't any chance of a emergency landing.

I'll skip the transponder going dark so ATC didn't know to move traffic away. The NTSB report does a great job by itself.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[wisdom_brewing]

Ahh... The daily american tradition of filing lawsuits...

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[GooberToo]

Because their radar systems are drastically more advanced than anything currently used in civilian aviation. Furthermore, they have a mix of ground based radar plug airborne radar which can detect individual aircraft out of significant ground clutter. Int he civilian world, you can lose aircraft distinction with aircraft as far as 4.5 miles apart. In fact, its common for radar to be observed in what is called "coast mode" which means if the radar does not get a clear return it interpolates where it thinks the airplane should be.

All of this ultimately null and void as a requirement for safe air travel is "see and avoid". Many UAVs are so small and/or purposely difficult to visually observe it makes it impossible for humans sharing airspace to safely uphold their portion of the obligation. Furthermore, because of technology limitations in UAVs, its almost impossible for UAVs to address the requirement. The bottom line is, even ignoring the potential radar issues, their demanding planes bump into each other and they want to know how you feel about turning every flight into a roll of the dice.

Simply put, its sheer stupidity to be studying what they know is easily twenty to fifty years away before it can hope to be safely implemented.

Re:Not sure what the BFD is

[Hurricane78]

Way to go, valuing lives of people from non-English-speaking countries over those of English-speaking countries.

So you think murdering is good? As long as it isn't you?
What would you say, if I said the same from my perspective, and as a first action of that, shoot you in the face?

Genuine government brainwashing at work. It always works.(TM)

9 dead people saw the issue last weekend

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/nyregion/12screen.html

How's that for predictability?

Already been tried, and didn't go so well.

[TheModelEskimo]

I tried this once, in a comic book I wrote. It didn't really work so well and several commercial airliners crashed. Oh and a terrorist hacked into one of the drones. I wouldn't recommend following this route unless you are using it as a violent plot device.

Re:Already been tried, and didn't go so well.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can back up what the parent said. I saw a movie once, I think it was with Arnold, that showed a similar thing happening.

Yep, only bad things can happen.

Re:Already been tried, and didn't go so well.

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried this once, in a comic book I wrote. It didn't really work so well...

Didn't work out well? Did you get detained by the TSA?

Re:Already been tried, and didn't go so well.

[Un pobre guey]

I can confirm that. If it was on TV or in a movie or on the intarwebz, it's true.

yes

[Anonymous Coward]

You asked!

not the right question

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not whether they will mix - but WILL THEY BLEND.

I think we know the answer to this from this week on the Hudson.

Yes, but not right away.

[antirelic]

I'm up in the air about this one. The US military is probably one of the biggest consumers of unmanned air craft, and has been using them extensively for quiet some time in Afghanistan. For the most part, the highlights scream "success", but I dont really trust the news for two reasons. One, the media is untrustworthy. Two, the military does not benefit by releasing news of drone failures (opsec issue and all, for those crazy left wing anti military whack jobs make of it what you will).

I'd be more inclined to support this if the military released unclassified reports on all of its unmanned UAV activities. Yes, UAV is not nearly the same as "commercial airliner" but its a good step in the right direction. The military can probably provide mountains of information on the outcome of thousands upon thousands of flights and all sorts of variable problems they have encountered (from mechanical to signal). This will be another area where military tech and military experience directly and dramatically impacts commercial applications of new technology.

Unmanned flight is going to happen. Not if, but when. This will occur with commercial cargo transports first (FedEx, UPS, etc), where saving money on "human support systems" will go a long way to reduce costs, improve route times, increase the amount of flights to be made, etc.. It only makes sense.

Re:Yes, but not right away.

[DustyShadow]

There are numerous documented crashes of the Predator drones. I believe the main cause of them, however, is operator error and not a faulty autonomous system. The controls are supposed to be really difficult and I have heard that the system sometimes randomly reboots midflight. http://www.google.com/search?q=predator+crash

Re:Yes, but not right away.

[neorush]

I have a brother in-law who is a communications officer for the Army and has done 2 tours in Iraq and is on his way back over to Afghanistan next month. The gist of what he told me is that they don't go in anywhere not secured with out one or more of the ROV's in the air. He was basically telling me they are by far the best source of reconnaissance for ground based units that they use. His testimony to me about their performance and reliability was enough for me.

Yes they can

[Anonymous Coward]

They can.

Should they?
That is an entirely different question.

It is basic problems like this in expressing intent and understanding responses that lead people to believe in Universal "free" healthcare. There is not now, nor has there ever been, "free" healthcare. Wake up and get educated. When your politician tells you something is "free", he is LYING.

It will cost you in taxes, inflation, quality, availability, freedom of choice, and a thousand other ways. But it is not free. The revolution returned to the citizens with basic liberties and rights, and the federal government has been steadily hammering away at them ever since. If you want the government to wipe your butt for you, move to Cuba or Canada or China. Communism, socialism, and theocracies abound. If you like them so much, and they are so great...move. Last time I checked the US wasn't stopping citizens from leaving.

It will take a lot more.

[lsdi]

I'm a pilot (A320 rating) and a software developer for a major brazilian airline. Unmaned aircrafts are remote controlled. Airbus and Boeing NG airplanes can, in fact, fly with almost no human intervention. But they only do that with very very specific scenarios and cannot solve any situation that is not predicted. In fact, there is no auto-pilot in the market right now that can keep a plane flying with 26kts+ of wind, it cannot predict the wind movement because it just can't learn how the wind gusts are behaving. 26kts winds are nothing, any private pilot can land a cessna skylane with that situation. IRS systems fail, VOR/NDB usually fail, ILS also. It is NOTuncommon to a pilot land a plane "tech-blind". That's just a simple scenario, there are thousands of situations where learning stuff on the spot is required. There is no computer in the market right now that can predict a wind-shear, thing that barely experienced pilots can. Students try to make a car drive by itself and that thing usually is too slow, unreliable, and just do wrong things. It will take decades of AI development to make a computer actually fly an airplane. Yes, I'm a A320 pilot and software developer, if you are too skeptical I can send my code you can check on ANAC website (FAA-like in brazil).

Re:It will take a lot more.

[Renraku]

Unmanned planes would be easier to do than unmanned cars.

We already have very good automation software for UAVs that can take off, survey, inspect, and land, mostly unassisted. If assistance is needed, such as to fire weapons, or in the event of an emergency or other engagement, it can be handled by remote by the operator. I'd expect these planes would be similar. Maybe hire some pilots and train them in unmanned systems, to handle emergencies. A human element in the system is about necessary, since it would be unreasonable to program in every possible scenario and outcome.

That being said, it'd be a lot cheaper to ditch an unmanned aircraft than it would be to ditch an airliner. Collision alarm going off due to a 747 heading towards the drone? Have the drone pull a 400G turn until there isn't a threat anymore. Worst case scenario, trigger an explosive to blow it out of the sky.

Re:It will take a lot more.

[Aviation Pete]

Have the drone pull a 400G turn until there isn't a threat anymore. Worst case scenario, trigger an explosive to blow it out of the sky.

Who ever rated this nonsense "Insightful"?

The laws of physics don't change just because there is no pilot in the plane to observe them. Higher performance (= climb and turn rate) come at a price. You CAN design an UAV for higher performance, but then it needs big wings and a large engine.
Before it can pull 400g, it needs to create lift 400 times it's weight force. And withstand the stresses involved. With current materials and technology, 400g is a pipe dream.

Re:It will take a lot more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: How do you know if someone is a pilot?

A: They'll tell you.

Also, Unmanned != Computer Controlled

Re:It will take a lot more.

[Sinical]

Hrm. Problems of a similar nature have been solved by the United States military in missiles. For example, look online for videos of the Evolved Sea Sparrow (oh nevermind: here ESSM). It pulls on the order of 80g when it comes hard over out of the launcher (using thrust vectoring). That video isn't the best but I don't think the better ones are public. I can't guess what the angle of attack is: call it 90 degrees... And you can still shoot this in some serious sea states and wind.

That's a quite specific situation and I think there is a specialized at-launch autopilot, but I know that our autopilot guy for a different missile that I worked on while in defense was concerned with tail winds and head winds and these things rapidly changing (gusting). We ended up having to add static pressure ports and a pitot tube to the missile to get accurate MACH readings in the face of this: when combined with the IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) and GPS, it was sufficient.

So, I don't know how transferrable any of this is to commercial aviation, but it was all handled by one (very, very sharp) guy for us and a veritable shitload of Matlab and Monte Carlo simulations. Too, I think the military accepts higher failure rates than commercial aviation: like a couple of missiles in every 1000 launches in the most severe conditions. I dunno what the rates are for the commercial guys but I'd think they would be lower :).

Re:It will take a lot more.

[lsdi]

Just adding: G forces does not mean much when not related to time. A human body can withstand 60Gs for a very short amount of time.

Re:It will take a lot more.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a glider or ultralight that barely shows up on radar and only has a small radio? Or a crop duster flying below radar coverage without a transponder? Or a student pilot doing low level ground refrence maneuvers and forgetting to turn the transponder on? There are a lot more small GA aricraft wandering about with varying levels of equipment operating in the altitudes and airspace these drones live in than large commercial jets. And they are very unpredictable in their motions and reactions to other traffic.

I'm a pilot and have a fairly good idea what they are going to do based on the type of aircraft, weather, etc. And sometimes it is still difficult to avoid them.

Who's at fault when a crash occurs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guarantee the first time there is an accident between a manned aircraft and an unmanned aircraft, it will 100% be the fault of the pilot of the manned aircraft but the media will go nuts over "OMG an unmanned aircraft STRUCK a manned aircraft today!!111"

Re:Who's at fault when a crash occurs?

[Aviation Pete]

I guarantee the first time there is an accident between a manned aircraft and an unmanned aircraft, it will 100% be the fault of the pilot of the manned aircraft but the media will go nuts over "OMG an unmanned aircraft STRUCK a manned aircraft today!!111"

You are on the right track, but got diverted by some hysteria.

Right now, the pilot is eventually responsible, even for technical mishaps (remember, he needs to check the a/c before flight, for a reason!).

If the UAV autopilot screws up, who will be responsible? The programmer who wrote the code? The operator who watched the events unfold? The owner? The ground control guy? Every one of them will refuse to be held responsible, and the whole mess needs to be cleared up before any meaningful civilian UAV operations will begin.

To get back to your hysteria: In the end it will be the lawyers who will most profit from civilian UAV operations!

sure they can mix!

[Tumbleweed]

They'll mix in approximately the same way as chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese's peanut butter cup.

*smash*

"Hey, you got people parts in my drone!"
"You got drone parts in my people!"

Mmmm!

Unmanned trains? Sure. Planes? Not so much.

That's not to say that flying planes can't be made vastly easier. NASA's "Highway in the Sky" program is encouraging the development of some pretty nifty stuff. Think about the computer display in the Nostromo from Alien. The view of the flight path the pilot simply keeps it within the optimal path, no problem for most situations. But it's those unusual situations you gotta have the real deal for.

Re:sure they can mix!

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll mix in approximately the same way as chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese's peanut butter cup.

I wasn't the only one who read the title as "Unmanned aircraft and commercial planes -- do they blend?" then!

Re:sure they can mix!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeh, like aliens at the destination.

Re:sure they can mix!

[Tumbleweed]

yeh, like aliens at the destination.

Only if we're lucky.

Who says they have to mix?

[nsayer]

Perhaps it is beginning to be time to ask not if aircraft under manual and automatic control ("manned" and "unmanned" to use the terminology of TFA) can commingle, but rather why aircraft need to be manually controlled at all.

The single safest mode of human locomotion today in terms of injuries per passenger-mile is the elevator ("lift" for those in the UK). Apart from museum pieces and some industrial models, they have been virtually exclusively under automatic control for at least 50 years now. The latest designs in modern aircraft no longer mechanically link the pilot to the control surfaces. And when called upon to do so, they can, in fact, automatically perform every flight maneuver required from take-off to landing (adding automatic taxiing would be obviously trivial).

All it takes is for someone to compare the rates of failure due to human error (or intrigue - the September 11th incident would have been impossible with automatically controlled aircraft), minus the rate at which human intervention prevents failures, with the expected rate of failure of the automatic control system. When the latter no longer exceeds the former, then the next generation of commercial aircraft will simply no longer have a cockpit at all.

Commercial aircraft operate under IFR. IFR is itself a precursor to an automatic control regimen. The flight plan calls for the aircraft to perform a series of maneuvers, with updates to the list of maneuvers supplied via radio from the ground by ATC. If contact with ATC is lost, everybody on the ground or in the air knows what the plane will do because of what the flight plan says.

There will always be a place for VFR and manual pilotage. But at this point, that is beginning to be a lot like saying there will always be a place for morse code in radio.

Re:Who says they have to mix?

[goodmanj]

The single safest mode of human locomotion today in terms of injuries per passenger-mile is the elevator ("lift" for those in the UK)...they have been virtually exclusively under automatic control for at least 50 years now.

If I could build a car or plane that had an exclusive right-of-way that makes it physically impossible for another vehicle or other object to be in its path, and a mechanical safety system which causes it to 100% reliably stop dead in its tracks if there's a mechanical problem, I'd have a pretty safe vehicle whether it was autonomous or manually operated.

Point being the safety records of elevators have more to do with the mode of transport than its control system.

Re:Who says they have to mix?

[nsayer]

and a mechanical safety system which causes it to 100% reliably stop dead in its tracks if there's a mechanical problem,

I'd say that is responsible for the majority of the improvement in the safety of elevators, but manual elevators were still more prone to cause injuries than automatic ones - mostly from when the operator failed to stop the car exactly even with the floor, which caused people to trip over the threshold despite them saying, "watch your step." Automatic control has virtually eliminated that formerly common occurrence.

Manual control was also responsible for system failure even when no injury was necessarily involved - mostly jams due to operator error. The sort of thing that has been almost entirely eliminated with modern automatic control.

Flying Cars

[Un pobre guey]

This report is in effect equally applicable to that age-old baby boomer consensual hallucination: the flying car. Flying cars will never exist because the term is incorrect. They are not members of the set of Cars, they are members of the set of Private Aircraft. For them to work, they are also most likely members of the subset Autonomous Private Aircraft, because it is absurd to expect traffic similar in size and complexity to that of cars and trucks in the skies above urban areas unless each vehicle can robustly and safely fly itself without the user being in control. Per-capita morbidity and mortality related to Autonomous Private Aircraft accidents will have to be well below that of motor vehicles for widespread acceptance.

I have always contended that there will never be "flying cars" for this reason, and that autonomous private aircraft are decades away, between 20 and 50 years in the future at current exponentially increasing technological development rates.

whatcouldpossiblegowrong?

[dominious]

huh? are you serious? and +5 Insightful? wtf is wrong here! where is the whatcouldpossiblegowrong when you need it?

I wonder what your AI will do in situations like: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/01/15/new.york.plane.crash/index.html

Not so simple now is it?

Take-offs are optional...

[bschorr]

...landings are mandatory.

I want a pilot, or airline official, on the plane that I'm on. Why? Because I want the person who makes the decision about whether or not the plane takes off to have THEIR butt on that plane too. I don't want the decision made in an office building 1,000 miles away by somebody who knows they're going home whether the plane lands wheels up or wheels down.

Re:What is the best way to kill myself?

[Anonymous Coward]

This straight-line, punch-line setup is too perfect to be an accident.

unmanned who?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know Unmanned does not mean there is no one at the controls right??? Wasteful contract to pay back buddies if you ask me but you didnt... so....

Quantity not Quality

[mac84]

The problem is less about the concept of drones and manned aircraft in the same airspace than it is about the absolute explosion of drones circling to monitor traffic for the TV stations and traffic speeds by the highway patrol once the cost of doing it falls by an order of magnitude by removing the labor cost and weight of the pilot from the aircraft. Unchecked, there will be five times as many aircraft in the air around big cities. This kind of traffic level is totally unmanageable. And drones will fall out of the sky just as manned aircraft do. And when they do, the sheer quantity of aircraft in the sky will mean they likely take other aircraft with them. That's what has the FAA scared shiftless.

Trucks ?

[feufeu]

Unmanned flight is going to happen. Not if, but when. This will occur with commercial cargo transports first (FedEx, UPS, etc), where saving money on "human support systems" will go a long way to reduce costs, improve route times, increase the amount of flights to be made, etc.. It only makes sense.

Yeah, right. I'd say it must be much easier to control a URV (say, an autonomous, unmanned truck) since it's basically a 2D and not 3D problem. But this hasn't happened until now and it won't in the foreseeable future. Correct if i'm wrong but you'd be scared just like me by the idea of a 30+ ton unmanned truck rolling through my neigbourhood ? Well, if this happens above my head it's not better either IMHO. (Someone will bring up the argument that it's possible and acceptable for many people to free up enough airspace for autonomous aircraft but not roads for trucks. So let's give more large chunks of airspace to the companies & the military ???)

Re:Trucks ?

[RobVB]

I was thinking about autonomous ground vehicles for a second as well, but I think UAVs are, in fact, simpler to accomplish than unmanned cars. Planes don't have to deal with pedestrians jumping in front of them, corners they can't see past, or people in front of them hitting the brakes.

Of course, planes are a lot more complex than cars from a technological point of view and there are many more things that can go wrong and break down, but even human pilots can't extinguish a burning engine in the air.

Re:Trucks ?

[blackraven14250]

What they do have to deal with, though, is the sudden appearance of another UAV doing an effective 800 miles an hour heading the opposite way of the line they're on. They also have to deal with more control surfaces, whereas cars literally have 2: speed and a 2d dimension, translated to one wheel to turn. Planes have to deal with speed, plus a 3d dimension (essentially 2 2d dimensions), which translates to yoke, pitch, and yaw. There's also no discernible landmarks in case there's a cloud during takeoff that blocks GPS navigation, but I'm going to guess fog or maybe clouds would be a problem for a car to drive itself under in many circumstances (depends on how it navigates) too, so it's a wash there. Airplanes have to deal with turbulence, cars have to deal with road conditions, another wash. Also, humans can't extinguish a burning engine midair, but they can overcome loss of a center, tail-mounted engine and all control surfaces by using the engines to keep themselves in the air. Do you really trust many corporations to think of every single scenario (and then implement it even though it takes x more man-hours per situation, leading to x^[number of single things that can go wrong, lots on an airplane]) when designing software for any purpose?

Re:Trucks ?

[RobVB]

Those sudden appearances seem less likely because of the air traffic control systems. They - in the ideal situation of course, there's probably some work to be done in this area - know at all times where all airplanes are and will be, so collisions can be avoided before becoming imminent.

More control surfaces, true, but this also means more ways to avoid a collision. When two cars are driving towards each other, they each have roughly three choices: go left, go straight ahead or go right. If the other guy does the same thing (mirrored), they collide. Two airplanes going straight towards each other have roughly 3*3 choices: left, straight or right horizontally and up, level or down vertically. This makes collisions 3 times less likely for airplanes than cars if they act randomly (without communication or conventions).

I know it's not that simple, I'm just saying that there's a lot more room up there than there is on the ground. It's also not a great comparison because you're basically playing with fast-moving, miles-large safety spheres that can't collide with others (as opposed to cars, which often keep distances measured in inches from other cars), that have to keep moving at a near constant speed (as opposed to cars, which can brake, stop, and wait on the spot for a while), ...

Planes could use Inertial navigation systems during takeoff, landing and normal cruising if GPS is somehow blocked. I believe planes have the upper hand on this issue, because they're more likely to be equipped with high-tech equipment to replace the old eyeball.

I'm no expert on airplane emergencies, but I guess pilot schools face the same problem as programmers. Pilots have to be trained to know what to do in any possible emergency, and if something happens they didn't see in a simulator, they're on their own to figure it out. I'll admit that at this point I'd rather have a trained and experienced human than a machine do the trial and error, even though they're both not programmed to handle the situation.

Still, without taking mechanical breakdowns into account, everything can be planned and programmed in advance, provided nobody enters the airspace without notifying air traffic control. UAVs would need a lot of system monitoring to make sure that if something breaks down, a pilot can take control of the aircraft from the ground.

I didn't say it would be simple, but I still think it would be simpler.

-1 Incoherent, for which I apologise.

Re:Trucks ?

[antirelic]

Huh? This doesnt make any sense...

There is currently military use of UAV... where the military isnt using many autonomous ground based vehicle. How is a URV a 2D problem? Only computer deal with 2D problems since reality is 4D, even on the ground. Air space is easier to deal with, less obstacles. The hardest part is landing, and that is already being done by computers in both the commercial cargo and passenger world. Yes, your pilot is not landing the aircraft, the computer is.

I'd imagine that satellites will contribute greatly to the automation of commercial aircraft.

Re:Trucks ?

[feufeu]

Airspace only easier to deal with because it's possible to deny access to everything except the stuff you want to have inside it. That's much like building a private highway with only vehicles on them, controlled by some mandatory guidance system. Because this is probably not acceptable for everyone you'd have to come up with a system that deals with a much more complex environment on the ground (bikes, people, etc.) and i wish they'd do the same in the air because it's really nice to be able to move quite freely on the ground and on water on my own and i'd like to continue to to the same in the air.

Re:Trucks ?

[jp102235]

Ok, don't get confused, here is a summary: there are autonomous uav's (they have the intelligence to takeoff land, fly a mission ( waypoints, altitudes, orbit, drop bombs, return ), then there are standard UAV's: controlled totally by a human remotely. A third class of a uav - in development: an autonomous UAV that would - in theory - start to make decisions about its mission profile: pick targets, decide when to take off, respond to ground troop requests, etc.

there is no real technical difficulty in landing or takeoff - planes have had auto-land ability for decades- the problem is that the UAV: 1) doesn't have a 3d stereoscopic visual collision avoidance system like humans do 2) doesn't have a voice recognition system to hear other humans verbal avoidance commands: doesn't understand "dude! look out!" and 3) doesn't have the AI to deal with all the weird things that come up in flying big / small aircraft. (deciphering weather forecasts, deciding whether a target is legal/ethical, balancing mission profile with needs of ground troops, when to sacrifice itself to save others, etc , how to limp back to base under system failure (gracefully degrade), picking out an emergency landing field, etc etc

JP

Re:Trucks ?

[petermgreen]

but they can overcome loss of a center, tail-mounted engine and all control surfaces by using the engines to keep themselves in the air.
IIRC of the times all control services have been lost and the pilots have attempted to fly on engines alone only once have the pilots managed to bring the plane down in a survivable manner.

IIRC nasa did some experiments with computers landing on engines alone and managed to get them doing it so well that they just looked like normal landings.

The basic problem reamins though computers can only deal with situations they have been programed to deal with. Humans at least have some chance of working out new situations on the fly.

There are also things that humans are much better at than computers even when both know in advance that it may be an issue, things like picking the best landing site from a set of bad choices.

Unmanned trains? Killed 9 last month.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/23/metro-train-crash-investigators-focusing-sensors/

And those weren't even truly unmanned trains, they were actually about as "unmanned" as a modern Airbus plane (which, come to think of it, may *also* have had a fault computer input-sensor cause the death of more than a few people recently).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Soutwest Flight 1 0 0 9er, to Sun Baked Tower,

[LifesABeach]

Over.

Southwest Flight 1 0 0 9er to Sun Baked Tower requesting I L S approach, over.

Sun Baked Tower to Southwest Flight 1 0 0 9er, you are cleared for runway 2 2 Left, maintain altitude 2 5 0 0, at 2 7 5 over.

Southwest Flight 1 0 0 9er, requesting Short Final to runway 2 2 Right, over.

Sun Baked Tower to Southwest Flight 1 0 0 9er, that is a negative, there is Light Aircraft using that runway. You are directed to runway 2 2 Left.

Southwest Flight 1 0 0 9er, that's a negative Tower, I see no Light Aircraft Transponder emissions, am turning Short Final now.

SOUTHWEST FLIGHT 1 0 0 9ER YOU ARE TURNING INTO LIGHT AIRCRAFT, VEER AWAY, VEER AWAY!!!

Southwest Flight 1 0 0 9er, wheels on the ground, encountered light turbulence on short final approach.

SOUTHWEST FLIGHT 1 0 0 9ER YOU HAVE COLLIDED WITH 3 LIGHT AIR CRAFT!!!

Southwest Flight 1 0 0 9er, I am not experiencing any difficulties, no need to Roll the Crash.

UAV != Autonomous

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when are UAVs fully autonomous? Predators have human operators, they just happen to be a couple of timezones away. It doesn't seem to be difficult to route the ATC communications back to the pilot.

Re:UAV != Autonomous

[FlyingGuy]

You should try flying a "Flight Simulator" and then flying a real airplane.

Oh and yes, I am a pilot. No camera can replace peripheral vision, No camera can replace a pair of eyes that live by the cardinal rule of VFR flight, "See and Avoid" and no camera can replace a hand shaping the eyes "just so" to see the glint of another planes wing in the sunset.

.

Drones, great for war zones bad for civilian air space

Airspace deconfliction for drones

[Animats]

I went to a meeting at NASA Ames in Silicon Valley about this last year. There are people who want to fly various types of drones for law enforcement purposes. One of the speakers was from the Sacramento PD, which sometimes uses a helicopter. But the helicopter is expensive to fly and can't stay up long enough. They'd like to fly a small drone with TV cameras when they just need to look around from the air.

Currently, there's a procedure for requesting airspace for such operations, but it takes months to get approval from the FAA. Unless it's a law enforcement emergency, in which case it takes only hours. Current policy is to clear all other traffic out of airspace where UAVs are being operated, which is why it's so hard to get permission.

One goal is to handle UAV operations like helicopter operations in class A and B airspace, where ATC is aware of and is separating all aircraft. News and police helicopters in LA are operated that way; they have to be, with all the air traffic over Los Angeles. UAV operations may turn out to be easier to manage in such highly congested areas, where everybody is used to tight control over flights and the ATC capability is in place to keep track of them.

Here's a challenge: write a VATSIM bot.

[Animats]

VATSIM is a simulated air traffic control environment. It allows users of Microsoft Flight Simulator to connect to a set of Linux servers which simulate worldwide air traffic. There are volunteer ATC controllers, who run a simulator for an ATC position, with a simulated radar screen. The controllers issue clearances and control traffic as in the real world. To the greatest extent possible, real-world procedures are followed. Real-world weather information is used, and everything runs in real time.

So VATSIM would be a good environment in which to test an automated UAV controller which talked to ATC. VATSIM will accept text communications with ATC, so it's not necessary to do voice recognition. When a UAV can fly routinely in VATSIM, properly interacting with ATC, then the basic problems of operating in controlled airspace will have been solved.

Unmanned =/= autonomous. Also, a proposal.

[goodmanj]

The article is about unmanned aircraft, which is not the same thing as autonomous. We're probably talking about vehicles which have a real human pilot, she's just not in the vehicle.

Given that, there's a pretty simple way to make tower communications work. It requires a little hardware, but not much. (I don't have a solution for the problem of detecting and avoiding other aircraft.)

The pilot operates his vehicle from a ground station as usual. To deal with air traffic control, he calls the local tower on the phone. He's got a special PIN that came with his UAV license, when he calls the tower and authenticates with his PIN, his phone call is patched in to the ground-to-air communications channel. His UAV has a normal transponder, so he has both voice and squawk code contact with the tower. If the tower asks him to switch frequencies or contact another air traffic control authority, he types the new freq into his phone keypad and his call is transferred to a similar system at the new tower.

Simple, cheap, and as bulletproof as landline telephone service can be, which is a hell of a lot more bulletproof than air-to-ground radio. All you need to buy is one phone patch box for each tower.

If you don't like the phone idea, you can simply require that UAVs carry the same radio equipment that manned aircraft must carry, and that they must have a system to control the radio and rebroadcast its signals down to the pilot on the ground. If you do it that way, the tower can treat the UAV as just another plane. The disadvantage is that it increases the complexity of the UAV, and is overall less bulletprooof than the phone system.

If we were talking about *autonomous* UAVs, that's a whole nother ball of fish. (kettle of wax?) Nobody in their right mind allows any autonomous vehicle bigger than a Roomba out in an uncontrolled "free range" environment. It's premature to discuss air traffic control for autonomous aircraft before we prove we can handle autonomous watercraft and ground vehicles, which are simpler problems and/or carry less penalty for failure.

But the question is...

[Nomaxxx]

Does it run Linux?

Predators over U.S.A.

[badass fish]

Why in the world should we allow our government fly such planes over U.S. soil I for one don't welcome our new unmanned overlords.

Re:Predators over U.S.A.

[Koreantoast]

UAV's don't necessarily mean Predator drones. There are plenty of legitimate, nonmilitary uses for unmanned aircraft ranging from geological survey work to firefighting and in the future cargo transportation.

Re:Predators over U.S.A.

[Anomalyst]

don't forget innocent citizen and political opponent surveillance

Yes/no?

[cemulli]

I've been researching this, and it's certainly interesting that the FAA is looking into this, but I'm really inclined to say NO.

A Predator B drone crashed in the southwest in 2006. They blamed pilot error. The North Little Rock Police Department has been testing an unmanned helicopter over rural airspace, and the helicopter crashed during a test flight in June. They blamed software error. Technology has outpaced law, they say. We have to change the law to keep up with technology, they say. Uh, why don't we wait to say that until the technology is stable enough that it doesn't put innocent lives at risk to let these things dart around in commercial airspace?

Dear Houston and Miami,
Look up and wave. The FAA already approved for police departments in these areas to use unmanned aerial vehicles over populated areas.

Interesting side note: I don't know how many people it takes to operate a normal drone, but the helicopter drone that the NLRPD was operating took 4 people to run it.

I love when life gives you these things that you just can't make up.

Re:No?

[WheelDweller]

You mean the skirt-chasing, sometimes drunk pilots? They're a little over-rated.

We're not talking about split-second decisions here, surprisingly. A drone can be sent the long way around the thundercloud completely removing it from concern, instead of a pilot who's 'sure' he can make it. The drone has no ego, nowhere else to be; while it can't be perfect (it's made by man) it can do a really, really good job.

There's actually an entire squadron formed just a few months back, in the Air Force for robotic aircraft. And there's more in Iraq than manned aircraft. It's not like they've had no experience in this arena.

ONE KEY, SHOWSTOPPING PART, THOUGH: we have to settle on GPS trackers on the squawk. There's a transponder that traditionally shows altitude and airspeed to the control towers.

Part of the ground-level failures that happen is when a plane goes down to land, and is taxiing to the hangar, as well as coming off the ground. Radar is unpredictable, and encoding the GPS coords into the transponder could stop all those problems.

If it were in place, system-wide, the mid-air crash the other day wouldn't have happened: both craft, and the tower, would have seen each other. The tech has been out for a long time, but aviation is long to settle on new technology- they've been using it here on FedEx planes flying out of EVV (Evansville, Indiana) for several years now.

The gut-level, human instinct is to say no to the idea of unmanned flight. But as well as lowering the costs, it side-steps the problem of tired crews, (See: last week's NINE HOURS stuck on a plane) and can open up the industry.

Pilots and their bosses are making this change...not Detroit's car makers. We all remember how much 'fun' the new, 'smart', talking cars were, aye?

Hear hear!

[professorguy]

I've argued this for years. Check out Why There Are No Flying Cars.

Summary: "Taking the human out of the loop means the lawyers will kill it."

This isn't about safety, it's about freedom.

[professorguy]

We can argue all day whether the planes are SAFE. I'm sure they can be made safe enough eventually.

But the important point here is: THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO DEPLOY MILITARY EQUIPMENT AGAINST U.S. CITIZENS ON DOMESTIC SOIL.

The details of the technology are secondary to this violation of Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. And, again, we can argue about how much of the act is still available to citizens, but the real point is LET'S NOT GIVE UP ANY MORE!

Not when Im on the plane!

[Anonymous Coward]

If they want to implement this into cargo and freight aircraft that's great, however if im on the plane I want a real pilot. At the very least there needs to be a crew on board to monitor and man the aircraft in the event of an electronics failure. Also that automated system needs a way to 100% override it.