The New Normal
Thursday’s ATCA Annual programming was all about preparing for the future. Whether it’s 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), or new entrants, there is a lot of change coming to the national aerospace system (NAS) – and the current and future workforce needs to be prepared. This brief covers the conversation had during the session “The New Normal: Innovation Applied." There is still one more day of programming left, and you can register as an ‘All Access’ Attendee to view past sessions on demand! Learn more at www.atca.org/annual.
The New Normal
Dr. Charles Clancy, Sr. VP, GM, and chief futurist of MITRE Labs, opened the session with a keynote about exciting evolvements in 5G and the pathway it creates for modernization in the NAS. While we often hear of 5G in relation to our cell phones, the true customer of 5G is the Internet of Things. 5G will have an impact on network segmentation, information travel speeds, and AI data use and computing power. But of course, these changes do not come without costs and challenges, which were discussed by the panel following Dr. Clancy’s keynote. The panel was led by the FAA’s Steve Bradford and he was joined by Jodie Brinkerhoff, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport; Ashish Kapoor, Microsoft; David Rottblatt, Eve Urban Air Mobility; Rowayne Schatz, U.S. Air Force; Kip Spurio, Raytheon Technologies; and Akbar Sultan, NASA. They discussed the role of 5G and AI in aviation and what that means for the role of air traffic controllers.
The Power of 5G
Dr. Clancy mentioned that 5G allows for “network slicing” which is when end-to-end segmentation of the cloud provides different qualities of service to different sorts of users based on their needs. He said that in industrial applications, the goal is to be able to achieve one-millisecond latencies, which is “an astronomically small number.” At MITRE, they recently launched Open Generation, an initiative looking to leverage 5G in the drone and commercial space realms. Brinkerhoff said that Dallas Fort Worth International Airport has been talking about what 5G means for their services and operations. As this transition takes place and protocols change, there are also several risks to consider, like cyber vulnerabilities and potential ATC communication interference. “5G is a spectrum,” said Schatz. “We need to get it right because if we don't, there is going to be interference in dense areas and that’s going to compromise everything.”
A Shift to Autonomy
In his keynote, Dr. Clancy talked about 5G’s ability to unlock AI’s full potential to help manage all of the radio resources a drone may encounter. When a drone flies over a city, AI can reduce interference. Another added complexity to the airspace is the impact COVID-19 has had on the movement of people and goods. Kapoor believes that with people moving around less, there is a greater need for things to come to them. This means more cargo and more delivery in lower airspace. "Air traffic control systems can use automated methods and algorithmic methods, which use sensors, perception, and automated decision making, to help manage the airspace,” offered Kapoor.
The Role of the Controller
“Help manage” is key wording used by Kapoor. This sparked the panel's discussion about the role of AI versus a human operator. They talked about how AI can gather and analyze information much more quickly than a human would ever be able to, but that doesn’t mean AI should be in the driver’s seat just yet. Kapoor believes design needs to happen in a complimentary way, where computing occurs on the machine, but the decision-making responsibility lies on the human. Schatz agreed, adding that there are certain tasks you don’t want to hand off to a machine, but “assisted intelligence can help humans perform their jobs better.” Sultan explained that NASA sees the complexity, density, volume, and diversity of the future airspace, and the inevitable need for machine learning (ML) and AI to assist humans. “If you have two supersonic aircraft coming at each other and reaction times are not there for a human, you need automation to deconflict those aircraft,” he said. Sultan believes the challenge of ML and AI is creating and assuring their capabilities and creating standards around them.
Rottblatt envisions the air traffic control industry evolving. He believes they will still provide conventional services seen today – but will also “oversee a network of different service providers and technology providers that are working to facilitate the role of Urban Air Mobility outside of controlled airspace.” He explained the role as more of an 'overseer' or 'manager' who can assist in off-nominal situations. Spurio foresees complications in this shift. He wonders whether a controller will be able to jump back “in the loop” when something goes wrong if they have been outside the loop for a while. Though, he agrees that the only way to scale up the current system is to introduce more autonomy. There is still much to be decided on the division of responsibilities when AI steps into a larger role in ATM.
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