The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Air Traffic Control

Safety is a high priority for any aircraft, no matter during takeoffs, flights, or landings. With so many factors that affect flights and aircraft, some systems are designed to monitor many different moving parts to ensure flights go on or become grounded to ensure plane and passenger safety.

However, with artificial intelligence (AI) making its way into the aviation industry, air traffic control systems are expected to do more to help pilots and airlines by analyzing a bunch of data for each flight. Here are three examples in which AI is being used for air traffic control to improve the safety and efficiency of flights.

Frequentis

To better improve air traffic management and assess risk remotely, European IT company Frequentis will conduct a series of experiments in preexisting airports in Lithuania and Germany. Among these experiments involves the testing of a "virtual tower control system" to help automate tasks that human personnel could often overlook at a regular control tower.

Frequentis CEO Norbert Haslacher had this to say about implementing AI in his company's work:

“AI is ideal for supporting productivity and decision-making to improve situational awareness in critical situations by detecting performance gaps and detecting potential threats and anomalies earlier...An example of a mature AI application is the computer vision in a digital control tower, where objects on the runway are automatically detected and highlighted on the screen.

 This reduces air traffic controller workload, adds information that conventionally requires the controller to process such information, and can make the controller’s job safer."
 

SITA

Swiss tech company SITA sells a service known as SITA OptiFlight. The company touts that OptiFlight is the only solution available that creates predictive performance models for pilots. Acting as a GPS of sorts, the solution instructs pilots where to navigate their aircraft to reserve fuel as well as avoid bad weather.
 

Group COO of AirAsia Javed Malik gave a testimonial to praise SITA OptiFlight:

"AirAsia is making every effort to improve its operational efficiency and become a digital airline in all aspects of our business including its flight operations...SITA OptiFlight will allow us to leverage vast amounts of flight data to reduce CO2 emissions."

Searidge Technologies

Landing and taking off planes in foggy weather can be very difficult, but with Canadian IT company Searidge, worries can be alleviated with the new AI platform Aimee. With AI algorithms, cameras, and sensors for tracking aircraft, Aimee will notify pilots if planes are safe to land on runways despite low clouds or fog in the area. According to the Neural Autonomic Transport System (NATS), Aimee can help airports such as Heathrow International Airport "reclaim lost capacity and improve passenger punctuality".

Searidge CTO Alex Sauriol first revealed the first version of Aimee in 2017, along with these promising comments in a coinciding press release:

"Artificial Intelligence is enabling a new tier of applications across all of aviation and with Aimee we are making it easy for our customers to conceive, develop, and implement new operational solutions that enhance safety and improve efficiency,"
 

For those who are worried that robots will replace humans in the air traffic control field, rest assured that humans will still be essential for the foreseeable future, with AI only improving performance and making controller jobs better. As for travelers, you can be sure that safety will be optimized and pilots and control centers can "guess" less whether or not flights can be continued.

Are any of these new solutions worth it to you? Feel free to leave us your thoughts in the comments section down below!