Meet Cora - your new autonomous electric aircraft

[onetrack]

Well, this is certainly looking interesting - but the regulatory and control framework around autonomous aircraft would appear to be lagging behind the design and development stage of this machine.

 

 

 

[turboplanner]

You can buy an autonomous aircraft for less than $100.00; all drones with "return home" are autonomous on that leg.

The diffulty is when the algorithm needs to be exponentially expanded.

 

We went through this in the automotive and transport industries about ten years ago. Everyone was designing autonomous cars and trucks, and of course they were electric for "zero emissions" (disregarding charging emissions). That they still incorporated grilles for radiators and cabins for drivers was telling, but in the end the problem was adapting them to out open roads in both Urban and Highway conditions. At one stage Volvo came to Australia to practice with kangaroo avoidance; supposedly they had an algorithm for deer, and they wanted to add kangaroos, apparently not aware of wild cattle, brumbies, or wombats.

 

Those people who bought Level one autonomous cars, those with Lane Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control, Rain Sensitive Wipers etc, experienced some big surprises.

 

I had an experience on a roundabout where the local council had not only painted the radial lane lines but the straight through lines as well. The car opted for the straight through, even though I had my right indicator on (which could have been used as an autonomous aid), and the car developed the usual LKS front wheel shimmy warning, but I continued to turn so the car decided I was running off the road and forced the steernig wheel straight, or tried to. I had to overpower quite a strong force to keep turning.

 

I was an early promoter of Adaptive Cruise Control in trucks. It's frustrating in mechanical cruise control to set the speed of the vehicle in front only to find thay slow down, so you have to reset, then they speed up, and you just manage to get back to your space when they slow down. Adaptive cruise control theoretically puts you in convoy, reading the speed of the vehicle ahead and slowing down when it does, speeding up when it does, not chance of a nose to tail accident, so less stress.

 

However.......the designer had to set a parameter where it was safe for the poorest standard of driver, so on a busy freeway you set your ACC at the speed YOU want to cruise at, lets say 100 km/hr and ACC takes over. The first thing it does is establish its programmed "safe distance" from the vehicle in front, and your car slows down to leave a gap approximately five car lengths more than you've left for the last 20 years. Seeing you slow down to this big gap, two or three cars dart in front of you into your lane and take up the normal spacings. Your car slows down until the big "safe distance" is established again, then it starts all over again, and one of these cars is only travelling at 80 in the next lane, but saw you slow down so is now in front of you, and your car slows down to find its "safe distance" again. Of course what happens is you don't use your ACC in city traffic, so you lose the benefit you had in CC.

 

You decide to put your Level 1 Autonomous through the local car wash. It's a 30 degree summer day. As your car is locked into forward motion by the chain and the water jets start, just as you reach the first rotating brushes the smart wipers sensing rain turn on automatically, are grabbed by the brushes and the complicated pantograph arms are bent forever. Aervice departments have replaced a lot of wiper arms.

 

These are just three auonomous components of a car; the fully autonomous vehicles had to contend with all the unexpected situations the huma brain does. There was no point in just programming them to follow rules; they had to be progammed to react when the OTHER person was not following rules, such as running a red light, and so one. Far from being safer, the test vehicles and the early ones sold have been involved in many fatal accidents, the car industry is going through the lawsuit phase, and the suggestion from the industry is to forget about them for the next few decades.

 

Many jurisidictions around the world began looking at Autonomous Vehicle Legislation, but all they had to go on was the hype coming from the promoters, and once the accident trail started, with more realistic real-time data, have also been given a headache.

 

What has happened is applications where the algorithm can be simplified ave allowed some successful applications:

Autonomous trains are operating successfully

Autonomous Mine Trucks (300 - 800 tonnes) are operating successfully

Controlled, isolate route vehicles with, effectively, the same parameters as an elevator are operating successfully.

 

It's against that complex background that this aircraft comes on the scene, in some respects the latest "flying car".

The fact that the builder suggests the aircraft can fly from source to destination over cities is a good indicator that the current algorithm is going to limit its use.

Regulators in Australia have already had to contend with the hamburger drone delivery thought bubble. 

There is a Medical supply drone system operating somewhere, and that may have been in NZ, and it seemed to be a well controlled situation, not unlike the controlled Mining application.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flightrite]

There's already enuf dopey drivers out on the road suffering from fatigue (especially truckies)so having more automation would only exacerbate the situation!

Autonomous man carrying flying machines is scary stuff!

[onetrack]

I think you will find that the advances in AI in the next few years will be so staggering, that AI will become "the human" in control of autonomous vehicles.

Simply relying on sensors to move people from A to B safely - whether through the air, or along the ground, is fraught with large amounts of danger.

The autonomous mining trucks and excavators live and work in a totally controlled environment, and if danger is sensed, everything is brought to a halt.

In addition, humans are still involved in autonomous mining operations, watching with cameras and computer screens from a remote location..

I'm guessing there have been some major disasters in the autonomous mining scene, but the results were not publicly released, thanks to very tight mining company regulations that see employees sacked on the spot, for even just taking photos.

[Yenn]

How long have we been  told that automation is going to do everything we now do for ourselves. I am pretty sure it will not be in my lifetime and I doubt it will be in my childrens lifetime.

[facthunter]

I was a sceptic about cars at the outset.  Some aircraft autopilots do strange things. To do an autoland you need to have two working and engaged.. Two are better than one. The earlier versions had to be kicked straight manually and the max X-wind is reduced (Understandably). A plane is a much simpler situation than a car. (so they are finding out) Nev

[kgwilson]

Well they now have totally autonomous space craft as the latest SpaceX mission has demonstrated. All the humans on board were passengers and it worked with perfect precision. Anything less than that should be a doddle.

[turboplanner]

55 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

Well they now have totally autonomous space craft as the latest SpaceX mission has demonstrated. All the humans on board were passengers and it worked with perfect precision. Anything less than that should be a doddle.

Go for it; you could be an instant trillionaire.

 

The algorithm is somewhere between these two extremes, plus the ability to Respond to ATC instructions, review weather and bypass unflyable conditions, make forced landings etc.

https://psmag.com/social-justice/ground-control-to-major-tim-cook

 

 

[kgwilson]

Hilarious. No traffic lights, no signs, no road markings and no prangs. The cop in the middle just wandered around basically doing nothing but it works better than Sydney traffic I reckon.

[onetrack]

There's one major difference with the Ho Chi Minh intersection - they're all down to 5-10kmh, so they can steer around each other easily. Not so easy to do with approach speeds of 300 to 1000 kmh, as in aircraft in flight.

 

The SpaceX mission didn't have to cope with hundreds of other missions on intersecting paths at rocket speeds, that's where the problems develop.