Setting a protocol to handle air traffic control and collision prevention in airspace around airports is a 100% automatable problem. You don't even need a centralized control system. This can be handled entirely with software running on each plane. Same way a flock of birds can fly and never collide with each other.
Unfortunately that's not how things work in practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain_(computing) If Jepsen fails every database coming from single source, imagine the chaos of synchronising a P2P of various clients of various versions over a very noisy link. We can't even achieve that with home automation meshes that send maybe 3 types of messages!
Also you need to handle planes without computers - you can land a personal plane at almost any airport. (With lots of caveats but still) Also you need to handle planes with failing automation. Also you really want to know the situation on the runways, so there's really no need to remove the single source of truth here.
So what happens when a plane has a critical failure (related to this P2P communication), how does it land? How would other planes nearby magically know what the plane that is in distress is going to do? It’s basically an unpredictable peer in the network.
YOLO i guess? :)
Hypothetically the nearby planes can detect that unresponsive plane on radar or other sensors, and try to react together as an intelligent swarm, to avoid it and let that plane land manually. But it’s not so simple. Planes are not loaded with full fuel tanks, only a bit extra. Some planes may have already underwent a go-around if the airport is busy. So it’s not just “land without crashing”, it’s also a prioritization issue.
IMO we certainly need humans in the loop, in a centralized fashion, to “orchestrate” a manual emergency landing if there is some critical cascading failure or bug in the software. I agree that in the happy path (99% of cases) it’s possible to automate it all. In theory.
Things get more complicated when you consider that small planes (flown for hobby, flight school, etc) have waaaaay less tech. That can’t work in some peer to peer fashion without a major upgrade to all those planes too. And the owners of those planes are not corporations making billions.
What happens when an airplane's pilots have to radio ATC to request an emergency landing, and the planes' sensors have failed so it can't safety land itself?
johnisgood|8 months ago
If anyone knows what ATC software they are using in the wild, let me know. A screenshot would suffice.
malteeez|8 months ago
There is also some work by the germans on moving the TID part to a web-based approach.
fallingknife|8 months ago
viraptor|8 months ago
Also you need to handle planes without computers - you can land a personal plane at almost any airport. (With lots of caveats but still) Also you need to handle planes with failing automation. Also you really want to know the situation on the runways, so there's really no need to remove the single source of truth here.
lurking_swe|8 months ago
YOLO i guess? :)
Hypothetically the nearby planes can detect that unresponsive plane on radar or other sensors, and try to react together as an intelligent swarm, to avoid it and let that plane land manually. But it’s not so simple. Planes are not loaded with full fuel tanks, only a bit extra. Some planes may have already underwent a go-around if the airport is busy. So it’s not just “land without crashing”, it’s also a prioritization issue.
IMO we certainly need humans in the loop, in a centralized fashion, to “orchestrate” a manual emergency landing if there is some critical cascading failure or bug in the software. I agree that in the happy path (99% of cases) it’s possible to automate it all. In theory.
Things get more complicated when you consider that small planes (flown for hobby, flight school, etc) have waaaaay less tech. That can’t work in some peer to peer fashion without a major upgrade to all those planes too. And the owners of those planes are not corporations making billions.
trehalose|8 months ago