Challenges in Close-Proximity Safe and Seamless Operation of Manned and Unmanned Aircraft in Shared Airspace

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development of an integrated system for safe, seamless, and autonomous operation of unmanned and manned aircraft sharing airspace, emphasizing safety, collaboration, and reduced manning.

Contribution

It introduces a novel system enabling autonomous unmanned aircraft to safely operate alongside manned aircraft using natural language instructions and visual detection, with demonstrations of interactive AI-human collaboration.

Findings

Successful demonstration of AI pilot and human pilot sharing airspace

Vision-only aircraft detection system showcased

Identified key technical challenges for full autonomy

Abstract

We propose developing an integrated system to keep autonomous unmanned aircraft safely separated and behave as expected in conjunction with manned traffic. The main goal is to achieve safe manned-unmanned vehicle teaming to improve system performance, have each (robot/human) teammate learn from each other in various aircraft operations, and reduce the manning needs of manned aircraft. The proposed system anticipates and reacts to other aircraft using natural language instructions and can serve as a co-pilot or operate entirely autonomously. We point out the main technical challenges where improvements on current state-of-the-art are needed to enable Visual Flight Rules to fully autonomous aerial operations, bringing insights to these critical areas. Furthermore, we present an interactive demonstration in a prototypical scenario with one AI pilot and one human pilot sharing the same terminal airspace, interacting with each other using language, and landing safely on the same runway. We also show a demonstration of a vision-only aircraft detection system.