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It seems every day we are confronted with a story about artificial intelligence replacing another human job, but this one might be somewhat unnecessary, if not downright scary.

A team of engineers and researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) is currently developing a humanoid robot that can fly aeroplanes without the need to modify the cockpit.

Meet Pibot, a humanoid robot that can fly an aeroplane just like a human pilot by manipulating all the single controls in the cockpit, which are designed for humans.

According to KAIST, it can control its arms and fingers to ‘dextrously operate the flight instruments, even with severe vibration, using high-precision control technology.’ External cameras also allow Pibot to monitor the current state of the aircraft in real-time, with internal optics allowing it to manage essential switches on the control panel.

One of the espoused features of this tin-pilot is its ability memorise complex manuals, which allows it to be adaptable across various types of aeroplanes. This same impressive memory would also allow it to memorise navigation charts around the world, something that no human pilot is capable of.

“Humans can fly many aeroplanes, but they do have these habits built into them. So when they try to convert to different aeroplanes they have to take another qualification. Sometimes this is not that simple because our habit remains in our mind that we can’t simply change from one to the other.”

According to David Shim, an associate professor of electrical engineering at KAIST,  the pilot robot can be taught individual aeroplane configurations, and can then fly any aeroplane by simply switching to the aeroplane’s type.

“We had our predecessor of a pilot robot in 2016. At the time, we didn’t have good AI technology, so what we built was a simple robot. They cannot really learn anything from the literature or the manual. But recently with ChatGPT or with other large language model systems, the technology made paramount progress.”

It can memorise aircraft operation and emergency manuals (QRH, an in-cockpit manual for the flight crew to refer to in case of in-flight problems) and respond immediately. It can also calculate a safe route based on the status of the airborne aircraft.

Its adaptability goes beyond the aviation sphere. Standing at 160 cm and weighing 65 kg, Pibot’s humanoid design allows it to seamlessly replace humans in roles like driving automobiles, operating tanks, or even commanding ships at sea.

The project is being developed under the Agency for Defense Development (ADD), the government body charged with research into defence technology in South Korea, and Shim anticipates potential military applications in the future.

You gotta love the ‘war machine’ for always framing itself as ‘defence’.

I’m not so sure about this one. There is an intuitive element to flying that simply can’t be replaced by a robot.

This development comes after recent reports on fully automated maritime shipping, which likely means that all crafts will one day be controlled by a Pibot-like tin can.

Fortunately, our partners at Berry & Donaldson still use freight forwarding solutions with a human touch, and that’s why we trust them with our freight. We’ll take their combined 100 years of human experience over a clever Roomba any day.

[source:news24]