The future of aviation? Even more automationMost
consumers don't know how much of aviation is already automated. And researchers
expect fully autonomous flights to become commonplace in the next few
decades.
BY STEPHEN RICE AND SCOTT WINTER
In the
wake of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes of Boeing 737 Max planes,
people are thinking about how much of their air travel is handled by software
and automated systems-as opposed to the friendly pilots sitting in the
cockpit.
Older commercial airliners, such as the Beechcraft 1900, which
are still in service mostly as small commuter aircraft, often do not have any
autopilot installed. By contrast, modern commercial airliners have automated
systems that can augment or even replace pilots' performance, managing engine
power, controlling and navigating the aircraft, and in some cases even
completing landings.
Investigations are probing the possible role of
automated systems in the 2018 Lion Air Flight 610 crash in Indonesia and the
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash in March 2019. Regardless of those findings,
the public may not know how much automation already is part of flying today-nor
how much more automated commercial flight will become in the years
ahead.
Our research has examined consumers' willingness to interact with
automated systems on all types of vehicles, including aircraft. Most recently,
we have begun looking into people's interest in what is being called "urban air
mobility." This concept involves a system of small two- to four-passenger fully
autonomous air taxis that could carry passengers on short trips throughout
cities without a human pilot on board.
SIDE EFFECTS OF HIGHLY AUTOMATED
SYSTEMS
One problem that arises in planes that have highly automated systems
is that the pilots can lose track of what's actually happening. This is
presumably what happened in 2009 when Air France Flight 447 crashed in the
Atlantic Ocean on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Airspeed sensors failed,
causing the autopilot to turn itself off, but the pilots weren't able to figure
out what was happening or how to recover.
Some experts also believe that
a pilot's lack of awareness was a factor in the 2009 crash of Colgan Air Flight
3407 outside Buffalo, New York. While approaching the landing, pilots may have
missed the fact that the plane was slowing down too much, and again didn't
realize what was happening until it was too late.
Pilots who spend a lot
of time in the cockpits of planes with highly automated systems may also lose
some sharpness at flying planes on their own. The average pilot of a Boeing or
Airbus commercial plane manually flies the plane for between three and six
minutes of the whole flight-mostly around takeoff, the initial climb to about
1,500 feet, and then landing.
INDUSTRY SUPPORTS AUTOMATION
Airlines
and manufacturers say they would save money and alleviate the current shortage
of qualified pilots if they could reduce-or even eliminate-the number of pilots
in the cockpit. Redesigning the front of the aircraft to be more aerodynamic
could save even more money, if it didn't need room for pilots, or could move
them to another part of the aircraft.
Several companies are developing
fully autonomous aircraft, including Amazon and UPS, which want to use them for
deliveries. Boeing and Airbus are designing self-flying air taxis, which would
be used for flights of about 30 minutes and carry between two and four
passengers, and have tested prototypes. A company called Volocopter has been
testing autonomous air taxis in Germany since 2016 and plans to conduct test
flights in downtown Singapore this year. Ridesharing giant Uber, helicopter
maker Bell, and many other companies are also expressing interest in similar
vehicles.
CONSUMER WILLINGNESS TO FLY IN AUTONOMOUS AIRCRAFT
No matter
how far industry progress goes, the key to autonomous flight will be its
customers. We have been among the scholars who have studied how willing people
are to fly in self-piloting aircraft.
Most of the results suggest that
consumers don't know how much of aviation is already automated. Survey
participants tend to think pilots fly manually much more than they actually
do.
In a study we conducted in 2014, people were much more willing to fly
in planes with a human pilot in the cockpit-and quite unwilling to fly with
either a human flying the plane remotely or aboard a fully autonomous
plane.
Of course, some consumers are willing to fly in fully autonomous
aircraft. In a larger study in 2018, just under 30% of U.S. consumers indicated
they would be willing to fly on an autonomous airliner. These are the early
adopters, who tend to be people who are familiar with automation and view flying
on an autonomous airliner as a fun activity. People who are happy about the
prospect of increased automation also tend to be more willing to fly on smaller
autonomous air taxis.
However, most people are not ready to take fully
autonomous commercial flights. Approximately 60% of passengers in our study said
they were unwilling to fly on an autonomous commercial airliner.
We
believe that lack of knowledge about automation is one of the critical factors
here, and that the public would feel better about automated flying if they knew
more about the benefits of automation-such as extremely reliable automated
warning systems to prevent mid-air collisions and crashes.
WHAT THE
FUTURE ENTAILS
Automation is not going away. In fact, by all accounts, it is
becoming more prevalent in the cockpit. We fully expect autonomous flights to
become commonplace in the next few decades.
Despite the notable crashes
involving autopilots, the industry as a whole appears to believe that the
automation of the future will be safe, or at least safer, for the flying public.
Human error remains the most common cause of aircraft accidents, and people are
prone to make the same mistakes again. They also may have trouble taking over
from automation if the computers run into problems. Automated systems, however,
can be reprogrammed not to make the same errors a second time.
Large
commercial airplanes will likely go pilotless later than smaller private
aircraft, because of the amount of time and money required to produce them. But
smaller air taxis simply are not economically viable if they require a human
pilot on board. As aviation automation engineering and technology continues to
advance toward full automation, companies and customers alike will need to
evaluate the risks and benefits, financially, in terms of safety-and
emotionally.
Stephen Rice is associate professor of human factors at
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Scott Winter is assistant professor of
graduate studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
