Now the technology is advancing to the point where more autonomy is available
By Robotics Trends' News Sources - Filed May 04, 2012
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Mary Cummings, a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, was interviewed today at Wired's Disruptive by
Design conference in New York, where she offered her views on the state
of the art in autonomous vehicles.
The work of Google and automakers has shown how cars can drive
themselves in some situations. And many commercial flights are already
fly-by-wire, allowing pilots to monitor the plane for when something
wrong happens, rather than actively take off, fly, and land.
Now the technology is advancing to the point where more autonomy is available -- if people become comfortable with it.
More commercial flights, for example, could be operated autonomously,
but there are cultural barriers (it's more common in Europe than in the
United States) and safety concerns. Left to monitor a plane rather than
fly it, pilots get bored and distracted, and pull out their laptops or
phones, she said.
"It is a problem not because pilots are unprofessional; they're just
human," Cummings said. "When you're working with a highly automated
system, we're going to find things that take our attention away."
Commercial flights will never be completely automated, she predicted.
"You always need someone to take care of unruly and drunk passengers,"
she said. But there could be a smaller crew, such as a flight attendant
who is also the lead pilot.
Cargo flights are more likely to operate autonomously, she predicted.
Farms, too, are prime locations for autonomous vehicles, she said.
Cummings has also done work with John Deere to design robotic
tractors. Using sensors and GPs, the tractors create a virtual line in
the fields, and can do spraying, tilling, or other jobs normally done by
drivers.
"Farmers are very conservative. It's not a crowd that lends itself to
robots, except they can't get enough people to work the fields," she
said, adding that the routine tractor work gets boring. UAVs in the form
of robotic helicopters will also be deployed for crop dusting, she
said.
The technology for robotic tractors is nearly ready. The challenge is
developing a business model for it to become commercial, she said. She
predicted that robotic tractors will be operating in the United States
in one to three years, sooner than planes, because there are fewer
safety considerations.
She is also working with the U.S. Navy on research to design an
autonomous helicopter that could rescue an injured soldier from a
potentially hostile environment by responding to a call from a
smartphone. Her prediction for this robotic medical military care: 7 to
10 years.
