Airbus is experimenting with autopilot technologies in flight and on the ground

Paris, Jan. 12 (EFE). Airbus is testing a demonstrator with pilot-assistance technologies so that planes can independently perform the full series of operations, including landings, airport transfers and taxiing to the ground.

David Bielsa, one of its principals, explained to EFE on Thursday that the demonstrations, which were carried out by its subsidiary Airbus UpNext with an A350-1000 test aircraft, are intended to “make the aircraft safer” and its operations “more efficient.”

Dragonfly, which is the name given to the viewer of these technologies, assists the crew in making decisions but they cannot control the device themselves, Bielsa stressed that “the pilot always has the last word”. When asked about movie scripts about machines that escape the will of those who direct them.

There are three scenarios in which DragonFly can assist them, one of which gives the aircraft the ability to divert to a different airport than initially planned in the event that the crew is unable to act, for example due to fainting or some other type of incapacitation.

This situation was tested at the end of 2022 by the Airbus A350, which was scheduled to land at Lyon airport but was diverted to Toulouse airport when it was flying near the city of Limoges.

Another line of work is the ability to automatically land at any airport, not only as now with those equipped with the ILS (Instrumental Landing System), planned among other things to facilitate operations in heavy fog.

For this, different sensors are being evaluated and computer vision solutions are being developed.

Some workarounds are also useful for the third scenario, which is to automate many of the plane’s taxi functions once it lands at an airport and has to go to its parking lot, which is one of the most complicated things for pilots, especially on highly saturated platforms. .

The demonstrator being tested can inform the crew of the route they should take to that parking lot as instructed by air traffic controllers, control speed, detect obstacles (such as vehicles) or warn that they have entered an unauthorized lane. .

Bielsa stressed that “our competitor’s ambition is very great,” and that “the preliminary conclusions of the flight tests in 2022 are very promising,” and that the flight campaign will end early this year in the context of “actual air traffic.” “.

But on the question of when DragonFly can be applied in commercial aviation, his answer is that UpNext’s mission is to accelerate the investigation of “promising technologies” and it is up to Airbus to decide whether or not to implement it in the future. EFE

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