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A friend of mine, a military helicopter pilot told me years ago, that Airbus can basicaly fly by itself, except for taxiing. It was about 15 years ago. But the

• contrarianmop 6y ago
  We already have automated railways - metro trains in copenhagen have been self driving for over a decade now. While I am not personally sure about airplanes, automated trains should become more popular.
• Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
  > we will see automated railways The future is now: there are automated rail lines in a numbers of cities around the world. Some are relatively old, too. The JFK AirTrain is one such example.
  • PinguTS 6y ago
    Most of the automated railways operate on closed tracks. Many of those even on closed platforms. Here in Germany, my hometown Nuremberg, it runs one of the first underground railways with open platforms and combined with man operated railways. It needs a lot of safety electronics and I know some guys who were responsible for certification after install. (Yeah, I am somehow from the business.) Don't try to compare closed tracks to open tracks. A closed track is more like an elevator.
    • ProZsolt 6y ago
      We have the London DLR
      • tialaramex 6y ago
        The Docklands Light Railway is both grade-separated (which I guess is what your parent was getting at with "closed"? hard to tell) and only GoA (Grade of Automation) 3. There are GoA 4 systems in use in the world. The difference is that every DLR train has a trained operator onboard whereas in a GoA 4 system the nearest employees are in some distant operations centre, watching only via a CCTV connection. GoA 4 trains are entirely autonomous, if one were one day to somehow break down so badly as to be inoperable a separate team would need to go rescue it and meanwhile other trains would simply stop at a station and allow their passengers to disembark.
        • ProZsolt 6y ago
          He compare "closed" to elevators, so I thought that "open" meant no junctions, but you can be also right. Usually there is no operator onboard. But is still GoA 3 because emergency situations are handled by operators from a control room.
          • tialaramex 6y ago
            There is always a trained operator on the DLR. Look around, you will see there is a person wearing a uniform who is perhaps helping tourists figure out where they need to change trains, or assisting a woman struggling with shopping and a push chair. These are TfL employees trained to drive the train, even though it's autonomous. Before the train leaves, even under normal autonomous operation, this person in the uniform activates a "close doors" control and this is the only reason a DLR train will close its doors. When the doors are closed and the way ahead is clear the train will drive itself to the next station, and open the doors, the cycle repeats. The person wearing the uniform is trained to safely operate a train. Any time they're on first shift they actually sit at the front (usually occupied by excited children) and unlock the onboard controls to literally drive the train for route verification purposes. Autonomous trains aren't looking, and tools or equipment may be left on the track by work gangs (despite a "count it out, count it in" procedure) so the first trip of the day is always done manually. You can't drive a DLR train from the control room.
    • cogman10 6y ago
      What are the main difficulties around an open system vs a closed one? To my novice eye they look like they should be fairly comparable.
      • jacobr1 6y ago
        Runs on my laptop vs runs in production
      • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        A semi truck breaks down in a position fouling the tracks. A drunk passes out on the tracks. A freight car isn't securely tied down on a siding and rolls out onto the tracks. Et cetera. For an open system, you have to be able to respond to arbitrary visual input. For a closed system, there shouldn't be random stuff on the right of way.
        • flukus 6y ago
          And that we don't have AI that can handle these relatively easy scenarios is soft proof that we are nowhere near the hard scenarios of fully antonymous driving.
        • taneq 6y ago
          For most train situations, isn’t it impossible to stop once you’re in visual range anyway?
          • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
            Depends on where you are. Some places are flat enough that you can see several miles. A freight train can stop in two miles, more or less. You're not going to see the drunk on the track in that range, but you might see the semi or the freight car.
          • joshribakoff 6y ago
            Think outside the box, the camera could be mounted at the intersection instead of on the train. I'd presume whoever is certifying this stuff also ensures if the gate isn't verified to block traffic, the train stops before the intersection
  • Simulacra 6y ago
    What are the drawbacks to automated rail? I had to look this up and was very surprised rail is not automated more in America. Is it safety?
    • stingrae 6y ago
      In BART, in the bay area, I believe it is largely because of Unions.
      • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        Well, BART had one crash because the automated control system mis-read a command and accelerated when it should have been braking. Debuggable? Perhaps. But after that, it's a tough sell to say that there shouldn't be a human in the cab to say "Wait a minute, that's not right."
    • Avicebron 6y ago
      Unfortunately there has been a prolonged campaign(ennui?) against rail in the US. I imagine lack of funding for innovation in legacy rail systems is to blame here.
      • causalmodels 6y ago
        Rail cannot get adequate funding for even basic maintenance and upkeep and upgrades, let alone modernization, because of widespread corruption among government officials and public sector workers. I'm sure public perception plays some role but it is not the root cause for our current situation.
    • aahhahahaaa 6y ago
      A mix of politics, bureaucracy, and cost. For example, there was a fatal derailment back in 2017 in the US, and an automated safety system that may have prevented it was delayed. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42421417 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42421417 From the wikipedia article on Positive Train Control (PTC): >In December 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that Amtrak and the major Class I railroads have taken steps to install PTC systems under the law, but commuter rail operators were not on track for the 2015 deadline.[14] As of June 2015, only seven commuter systems (29 percent of those represented by APTA) were expecting to make the deadline. Several factors have delayed implementation, including the need to obtain funding (which was not provided by Congress); the time it has taken to design, test, make interoperable, and manufacture the technology; and the need to obtain radio spectrum along the entire rail network, which involves FCC permission and in some cases negotiating with an existing owner for purchase or lease.[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_train_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_train_control So needless to say... the technology likely exists today, but implementing anything significant to existing infrastructure in the US is a monumental feat. The above example is just a safety system, but once you start removing employees you also start running up against labor unions... which is yet another layer holding things back.
  • plumeria 6y ago
    The metros in Lausanne, Switzerland and in Copenhagen, Denmark are automated.
    • gspr 6y ago
      Nitpicl: Only one of Lausanne's two metro lines is automated; the m1 is way too exposed to human interaction with the track area for that to be risked as it's currently laid out. Also, Line 14 on the Paris metro (heavy use) has been automated since the 90s.
  • sandworm101 6y ago
    But we haven't seen automated freight trains. A light rail train hauling commuters along a dedicated bespoke elevated rail line (Vancouver's skytrain, Disney World etc) is one thing, a hundred cars full of iron ore descending a hill behind a preschool is another.
    • joosters 6y ago
      The preschool is hiding behind the hill on the railway line? I wish they'd stop building these schools on the train tracks, it's so irresponsible.
    • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      I believe that Australia has an automated freight line. The original intent of the Black Mesa & Lake Powell (hauling coal to a power plant) was for it to be fully automated, but I don't know if it ever ran without a human in the cab.
      • sandworm101 6y ago
        >> has an automated freight line. I didn't know about that, but is it a "freight line" or a "freight train"? If it is the former, a dedicated line used only by the automated train, then it isn't all that removed from disneyworld: a single-use train on a dedicated line. And Australia is notoriously flat. I'm from the west coast, where driving a heavy train through the mountains is serious business, but disasters can happen anywhere. The latest epic disaster in Canada was caused by a train that was unmanned at the time. It was parked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaste...
        • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
          Yes, I've been to Tehachapi, Cajon, and Donner Passes. And Cima Hill, and Ash Hill, and Goffs. I know what mountain railroading out west can be. Maybe the gnarliest scenario I know of out there is: There's a major brush fire on Cajon. Like, 20-foot-high wall of flame. Is it far enough away for you to try to get the train past it? (With maybe 4000 gallons of diesel fuel under each locomotive, and maybe liquefied petroleum gas tank cars in the consist?) Or do you park the train, and hope the fire doesn't come to you? I mean, I guess an AI can make that decision without being influenced by concern for its own survival. But I suspect that most train-driving AIs don't have a really good set of training data for this scenario...
• cgh 6y ago
  Vancouver has SkyTrain: "SkyTrain is the oldest and longest, fully-automated, driverless, rapid-transit system in the world." https://www.translink.ca/Schedules-and-Maps/SkyTrain.aspx https://www.translink.ca/Schedules-and-Maps/SkyTrain.aspx
  • PinguTS 6y ago
    Which is a completely closed track, much like an elevator.
    • 4ec0755f5522 6y ago
      Not sure this meets your definition but the Expo line splits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_Line_(SkyTrain)#Route https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_Line_(SkyTrain)#Route
  • boudin 6y ago
    There's a few one that existed before then. Quite crazy to think that some existed in the 70's, almost half a century ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_guideway_transit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_guideway_transit
• ekianjo 6y ago
  There are already automated trains in Paris (one metro line), and I can think of several places in Japan with automated train lines as well (not the main ones). It's already proven technology.
  • Avicebron 6y ago
    I would be very happy to see automated trains, I often see an immediate jump to tackling the hardest cases in engineering before thinking about simple and efficient solutions. Almost everything about the Japanese rail system is something I want to see in the US
    • lovemenot 6y ago
      Railway operation in Japan is indeed excellent and worth emulating. However, busier services are very much dependent on human operators. Both on-board (2) and platform-side (half a dozen).
  • mattlondon 6y ago
    In London several of the tube lines are automated. There is a driver but all they do is press a button to close the doors at stations and make announcements to passengers "for safety purposes" (i.e. unions)
    • Skye 6y ago
      For some lines that go above ground (Northern, Jubilee, Central), the driver sometimes had to put it into manual mode to compensate for the worse breaking when it's raining outside.
    • matthewmacleod 6y ago
      This is a bit of a misrepresentation. Drivers still have actual safety and operational roles – they can drive the train manually in cases of equipment failure, deal with passenger emergencies, that kind of thing. Even the DLR, which has used automation since opening, has a staff member on each train who can take over driving if required. That's not to say that entirely driverless services can't be done. There are a bunch of metro services globally that are grade-4 fully-autonomous and totally unattended, and some of them have been in operation for over 30 years. But like all large-scale systems, there are lots of complicating factors, system-specific conditions, and various tradeoffs to be made – a lazy Daily Mail "damn unions" argument isn't really fair.
• jvanderbot 6y ago
  This is a highly underrated insight to autonomous system design. The use of autonomous systems in dense public spaces will usually be driven by programmatic constraints before technical ones.
• davidhyde 6y ago
  It is very difficult to convert trains to run fully automated not because of the technology but because of unions that typically run the show. Don’t underestimate the power of the unions. They have decades of experience in getting their way.
  • Dahoon 6y ago
    Very US specific.
    • peteretep 6y ago
      Why do you think that?
      • lmm 6y ago
        Plenty of examples in the rest of this thread are talking about automated lines in France, which has some of the strongest unions in the world. So the idea that unions are what's blocking automated systems is crazy, at least if applied globally.
• cbanek 6y ago
  I've always been amazed at the trams in Vegas between the casinos that are I think remotely semi-automated (at least one of them, I've seen an operator in a booth at one terminus, in the Excalibur). Some of them are even elevated! I think the Las Vegas monorail is also automated.
  • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    I rode the Las Vegas Monorail, which is automated. It is also elevated. When it gets to the end of the line, they tell everyone to exit the train. Well, I didn't (hey, there's no attendant to make me...) They then switched from one track to the other. This involved moving down past the station to this stub of track that just ends in midair, with absolutely nothing except the control system to keep you from going too far and crashing down 15 or 20 feet to the ground below. That was... a bit nerve-wracking. It all worked, and they don't regularly fall off and crash, but... I don't think I'd do that again. But yes, they're automated, and it works, and works reliably.
    • cbanek 6y ago
      And if it works in one of the places in the world where people can carry open alcohol, it's pretty foolproof? :) Love the part about not getting off the monorail. I'm tempted to try that myself someday!
• 7952 6y ago
  There are still safety critical things that the Airbus is unable to do itself. For example talk to ATC, make decisions about changing weather conditions, fly a visual approach, or know that the causes of an electrical problem is coffee spilled on the thrust levers.
  • one2know 6y ago
    Exactly, there is a limit to the intelligence that people are willing to pay for. For example, no aircraft manufacturer will go as far as to develop a differential thrust system that replicates how UA 232 pilots guided their plane after flight controls are lost. Its just not cost effective.
    • joshribakoff 6y ago
      Is it really any different from a self driving car thats designed to pull over to the side of the road safely if its main functionality fails for an unexpected reason?
      • one2know 6y ago
        Yeah, aircraft can't pull over to the side of the road in a catastrophic failure, and aircraft manufacturers will not pay to have the unique actions that a human faced with death would take built into the aircraft systems.
    • lopmotr 6y ago
      It's not necessary to reproduce all human abilities in recovering from emergencies because about half of crashes are caused by the human pilots in the first place. Just automating the routine things and letting it crash in exceptional cases could be safer than having a human that can save it in the exceptional cases but also mess up the routine things occasionally.
      • 7952 6y ago
        Although we have no idea how many potential crashes become near misses as a result of human intervention. For example a pilot initiating a go around in response to a runway incursion. I absolutely agree that most of those issues could be avoided with better technology. But that may require changes to all airports, all aircraft and perhaps even all airport vehicles. Suddenly every single approach is category iii, all the time without any alternative.
• redis_mlc 6y ago
  Oh look, the daily clueless HN aviation thread. > Airbus can basically fly by itself So? You still need a CAT III runway to use those capabilities with airliners, and that's a relatively small percentage worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland And what happens when the weather is bumpy enough for the autopilot to disengage. Oops - bodies in trees: "Turbulence. The pilot’s operating handbook (POH) and FD/autopilot flight manual supplements for many aircraft discourage or prohibit use of the autopilot’s altitude hold function during moderate or severe turbulence. Some FD/autopilot systems may default or disengage if certain trim or control limits are encountered during turbulent conditions." Aviation is the harshest physical and regulatory regime. I wish people would stop with the magical thinking about "no pilot" and "passenger drone" disruption fairy tales. Most airlines are only one fatal accident away from permanent grounding. Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.
• reactor 6y ago
  In Singapore, many MRT (Mass Rapid Transport, a.k.a Train) lines are fully automated, there are no drivers to drive them around.
• vkou 6y ago
  Vancouver's SkyTrain (Elevated/underground commuter rail line) is 100% automated - and the first branch of it was built in 1985. Unless they changed it in recent years, I believe it's control systems currently run on OS/2.
• askvictor 6y ago
  One of the few things a pilot needs to do (in normal operation) is to enter the take-off weight of the plane, but they get that wrong sometimes: https://australianaviation.com.au/2011/12/incorrect-data-entry-led-to-emirates-tailstrike-atsb https://australianaviation.com.au/2011/12/incorrect-data-ent...
• m463 6y ago
  Around 9/11 I was surprised the airplane manufacturers didn't put in a "big red button", that once mashed would irrevocably autoland to the nearest airport. they've had the capability.
  • thetinguy 6y ago
    No they haven’t. Flying is the easy part. The hard parts are navigating and communicating. Even then, even the largest airports will only support precision approaches on some runways in some directions because maintaining ILS equipment is expensive. What happens when you push the button and there’s a massive crosswind across the ILS runway? Also communication standards have ossified such that the only way you can talk to ATC is through 50s era radios. That means any fully autonomous aircraft would have to be able to accept verbal commands and produce verbal acknowledgments. The technology is so bad that a simple stuck mic can shutdown an airport. https://youtu.be/Wcq6KipBOro https://youtu.be/Wcq6KipBOro
    • m463 6y ago
      I was thinking more "broadcast we are under attack, or pilot unconscious" as the communication, and land (subject to external control?) They've had autoland for a while. Maybe in this context it means the nearest ILS runway, or nearest externally directed ILS runway. (just not landing in the side of a skyscraper)
      • thetinguy 6y ago
        Yes and auto land capability is not always available. Even today object avoidance is a hard issue. What happens when the aircraft flies into a flock of birds or some other obstacle, like another aircraft on the way to the runway. What happens when two planes both push the button at the same time and decide to both use the same runway? Autopilot even in aviation is a misnomer.
        • toohotatopic 6y ago
          What happens if they fly into a building because they don't have the button? It's a management of risks. Besides, there can be a back-link and information updates for the landing box to manage situations with two or more planes in emergency mode.
• tootie 6y ago
  I heard similar from a retired pilot in about 1994.
• traceroute66 6y ago
  @PinguTS, well your friend is either mistaken, or you misheard him or a combination of both. First, auto-takeoff is not possible. Its not possible due to technical constraints (e.g. concerns regarding LOC capture on the ground). It is also not possible due to safety constraints (e.g. the requirement to be able to deal with an aborted takeoff in a timely manner). Second, automated landing IS used, but it is only used in limited situations. Why ? - Because not all runways are equipped for CAT III autoland (i.e. the aircraft is not capable of landing itself without a shit-ton of calibrated equipment on the ground being there first, also good luck finding a CATIII autoland somewhere mountainous or with an otherwise tricky approach). - Because not all aircraft are equipped for CATIII autoland (see above, more kit, more money). - Because the autoland system itself has DH (Decision Height) and RVR (Runway Visual Range) requirements. The exception to this is CAT IIIC autoland, but AFAIK the vast majority of CATIII certified runways are only to CAT IIIB because that's expensive enough to certify, even for major airports. - Because of general weather requirements. For example, I don't know about you, but I'd rather NEVER see an aircraft attempting autoland in a Captain's crosswind (i.e. crosswind so strong that the airline prohibits the First Officer from flying it). - Becuase autoland operations at airports involve ATC increasing traffic separation. Increase separation leads to what ? Yes, that's right... decreased flow rate and increased possibility of delays and cancellations.
  • stunt 6y ago
    > Because not all runways are equipped for CAT III autoland (i.e. the aircraft is not capable of landing itself without a shit-ton of calibrated equipment on the ground being there first, also good luck finding a CATIII autoland somewhere mountainous or with an otherwise tricky approach). I think if you get must of the major airports covered that's still good enough. But, if I understood this article correctly, what Airbus is trying now is to make it happen without those ground requirements. And I'm sure they do not expect to cover every airport and runway to begin with.
    • amlager 6y ago
      I don't think the major airports would be good enough. What about emergencies where an aircraft has to divert? Can the automated plane land itself without engines, side slip to lose altitude faster and land safely on a non-ILS airport like the Gimli glider? Will it do the same on a grass strip, which some pilot did without engines in the Houston area? Can it do a perfect belly landing like a Polish pilot did some years ago? Can it land in the Hudson? All of those pilots had massive experience beyond button pushing auto-piloted aircraft. I think (hope) this is just a typical marketing program which is not actually going to happen.
• sebazzz 6y ago
  The problem with automated air transport is that the failure mode is going down through gravity and probably not being able to land on a suitable surface. I doubt we have automated pilots developed so far that any failure (and those are a lot!!) can be handled, and even then you might want to manually control. The failure mode of automated driving is less severe. You're already on a road, gravity holds you down and unless the brakes don't work (although in an electric car or bus, when not accelerating you're braking) the likelihood of accidents is smaller.
  • maxekman 6y ago
    It’s always possible to have a remote control station with extremely well trained emergency pilots to take over in those case. That of course requires a very reliable remote control system.
• C1sc0cat 6y ago
  My first job was based at Cranfield University which had an attached airfield - and back in the 80's they where practicing auto landings then