Airbus Experiments with More Control for Autopilot

 Airbus Experiments with More Control for Autopilot

BBC News

Shiona McCallum; Ashleigh Swan

June 19, 2023

French aerospace company Airbus' recently completed Project Dragonfly aimed to extend the scope of control of aircraft autopilot technology. The researchers experimented on an Airbus A350-1000 aircraft to enhance automatic landing, taxi assistance, and automated emergency diversion. The automatic emergency descent system assumes control of the aircraft’s descent and landing while identifying other aircraft, weather, and terrain if the pilots are incapacitated. The system can communicate with air traffic control using an artificial intelligence-generated voice via radio, and can provide the crew with audio alerts should the airplane encounter obstacles during taxiing, displaying the path to the runway and advising pilots on speed.  ... '

Sniffing the Virus?

See also sensory systems in https://koniku.com/technology for how this could work.

What happens when airports open back up?
Published on May 4, 2020
Osh. Agabi
Founder & CEO Koniku Inc. - @onikuo
We’re partnering with Airbus to ensure safety and security in airports.

Several states are loosening shelter-in-place orders in the next couple of weeks, signalling a possible return to some aspects of normalcy. If—and that’s a big if—more restrictions are loosened and people begin to go back to doing some of their day-to-day traveling, we need to have protective systems in place to prevent a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. 

Airports, when they eventually open back up to commercial flying, will need to implement new processes and security measures to screen passengers for the virus. This is why we are extending our partnership with Airbus, a global leader in aeronautics with expertise in sensor integration and security operations within the aviation and defense industries.

As we announcing tomorrow morning and already reported by the Financial Times, Koniku & Airbus have been working since 2017 to develop a contactless and automated biotechnology solution to detect, track, and locate chemicals or explosives on board aircraft or in airports. We are now adapting our development activities to include the detection and identification of biological hazards including pathogens such as the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 with encouraging signals as of today. COVID 19 is a warning shot and it cannot be business as usual.  ... " 

Robots Helping Astronauts

Heard about this a while back.   Uses IBM Watson AI.   But what were they helping with?   Specific micro tasks.  Anticipating needs.   Supporting technical conversations?  Providing information at the right time and place?  Reducing stress?   Just providing a smile?  How will it be measured?    Lots to be learned here.

This Robot Is Helping Astronauts on the Space Station With Tasks, Stress, Isolation   By Ashley Strickland

A ball-shaped robot built by Airbus at the German Aerospace Center is helping astronauts on the International Space Station manage tasks, stress, and the isolation of living 200 miles above our planet’s surface. In addition to autonomously navigating the European Columbus research module, the CIMON-2 robot can detect astronauts' emotions and tone during conversations and respond in different tones, from teasing to sad. It also can read instructions to guide the astronauts through various procedures. The robot is equipped with two cameras for facial recognition, and five additional cameras assist with navigation and recording video. Said IBM's Matthias Biniok, "CIMON is a technology experiment to find out how virtual agents can support astronauts and increase the efficiency of their work." ... ' 

Overview:
https://www.space.com/41041-artificial-intelligence-cimon-space-exploration.html

Mission description: 

https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2018/02/hello--i-am-cimon-.html 

Microsoft: How Hololens is used by Airbus

Good example of the use of Mixed/Augmented reality approaches in heavy industry.  Expect to see more of these to emerge. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxjC4Z05qh8  Video overview of use

Airbus drives innovation and accelerates production with Azure mixed reality and HoloLens 2

 Microsoft HoloLens

Airbus—a pioneer in aerospace technology and leading designer and manufacturer of commercial and military aircraft, satellites, and launch vehicles—has made a commitment to transform traditional industrial processes through use of mixed reality. The company has partnered with Microsoft to use Azure mixed reality and HoloLens 2 as a way to accelerate the design and manufacture of aircraft, while increasing safety and functionality and ensuring professional development opportunities for employees. Intelligent services like Azure Remote Rendering are changing the way complex ideas are communicated, and the ability to build multi-user, spatially aware applications with Azure Spatial Anchors promotes greater collaboration while increasing quality, safety, and security. Airbus is using Azure mixed reality to unlock the full potential of HoloLens 2 and, as a result, expects to reduce design validation time by 80 percent and accelerate complex tasks during assembly by 30 percent.  

Learn more: 
Azure Mixed Reality:    https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/mixed-reality/
HoloLens 2: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens 
Azure Cognitive Services:  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/

Airbus Tests Hololens

An example of the use of Hololens and VR/Mixed Reality for advanced manufacturing systems.  Most obvious space for this, which we tested .... integrating large quantities of background information such as blueprints and online analyses and metadata for manufacturing compliance specifications. 

Airbus works with Microsoft to trial HoloLens in aircraft manufacturing
Aircraft company Airbus believes mixed reality systems, powered using headsets such as HoloLens, will drive its digital manufacturing strategy .... "

The Farm is the Grid

Intriguing partnership for data.  Need more of this.   Metadata and data.   Data has value.

Airbus, John Deere connect tractors, satellite data
By Lawrence Specker | lspecker@al.com

Flying tractors may not be in the cards just yet, but the seemingly odd-couple pairing of Airbus and John Deere has jointly won a major European agriculture innovation award.

In conjunction with the upcoming 2019 SIMA agriculture industry show in Paris, the two companies have received a silver medal for their Live NBalance program, which Airbus describes as “a service merging satellite and tractor data to monitor intra-field nitrogen balance even more precisely during the growing season.”

Tractor data? So much for the dream of going back to the farm to get off the grid. Apparently now the farm is the grid.   ... "