
Instead of rewiring planes to fly themselves, why not give them android pilots? - edward
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21705295-instead-rewiring-planes-fly-themselves-why-not-give-them-android
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dogma1138
Because robots are still slow and clunky? Building robots that work fast and
well usually requires that we build an environment around them. This is why a
dishwasher works well but an android washing your dishes would make a huge
mess.

Also since most aircraft are already FBW when you have a pilot - controls -
computer - flight controls loop already it's considerably cheaper and easier
to just plug one computer into another.

You also don't need to rewire anything if an aircraft is capable of instrument
only flight and is fly by wire all you need is effectively an iPad and a USB
cable.

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angry_octet
While many aircraft are described as fly-by-wire that does not mean that there
is a software interface you can use. Older FBW aircraft are composed of many
independent computers using poorly documented interfaces -- it was never
anticipated that someone would later want to add a 3rd party autopilot. The
point of the robot pilot is that the only documented interface is the physical
one in the cockpit.

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angry_octet
Controlling the throttle and stick is pretty straight forward with bolt-on
actuators. However, the force fed back has to be measured too. Commercial
force feedback control systems for simulators cost ~USD20k per axis for a low
backlash electric system with much less max force than a pilot can exert.
Mounting this in on a robot arm with enough force to e.g. do a 10G turn sounds
very pricey.

There are many other controls in a cockpit that are not so straight forward to
control. These frequently involve fine motor skills (like moving a trackball
mouse to move a cursor). In larger commercial aircraft there are many many
switches which are a full arms length reach away, or require standing (pre
takeoff checks). A robot with the capability to do this is starting to sound
pretty expensive vs a bunch of strap-on solenoids and actuators.

Of course in an Airbus you could just plug in to the system bus. So really
what we are talking about is having a non-human and non-manufacturer
supervisory autopilot program. That isn't going to happen for passenger
carrying aircraft until we have a much better way of writing programs to
handle unexpected situations.

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anotheryou
Got paywalled, but everything would be more complicated, with the only benefit
of making the conversion reversible.

Just take the simplest button:

\- if you rewire: rip out the button, extend the two of the 3-4 cables (common
earth, button, status led) to a micro controller, screw it down somewhere.

\- if you build a robot: take your micro controller, send a wire to an
actuator to press the button, build a fixture so the actuator always hits the
button and does not slip, get extra power for the actuator (your micro
controller is too weak on its own) and something to trigger it, build in a
photo sensor to check on the LED, cover all windows in the cockpit so lighting
conditions remain stable, build logic that could detect a broken LED or a
stuck Button, make all these moving parts resistant to wear and don't forget
maintenance.

reading the other comments: they don't even want the strap-on solution, pfew?

edit after reading the article: They want to build robot arms. The advantage
would be, that they need sophisticated robot arms, but just 2 of them and one
hardware fits all, the rest is software. For bulk conversions this might be
actually cheaper.

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helthanatos
Tons of reasons... Instead of searching on Google, call your friend and let
them search (Google) it for you!

