Still Another Deadly Airport Crash - Time For AI?

WASHINGTON - Jan. 2, 2024 - PRLog -- Five people died, and almost 400 more lives were put at risk, by a fiery crash of two airplanes at Japan's Haneda Airport on Tuesday.

This is only the latest crash between two planes at an airport, and many more potentially life-threatening crashes at major U.S. airports recently, many of which are kept secret.

So it may be time to turn to a new technology to reduce the risk - AI - says professor John Banzhaf, an MIT graduate with two U.S. patents who studies safety, and who's proposals for safer school bus design were adopted by the U.S. government.

There have been at least 19 serious near-miss collisions at our nation's airport runways this year through October, the highest number since 2016, and at least one accident recently when two airplanes actually collided at Hobby Airport.

His idea in a nutshell is to use already existing AI software to monitor airport radio transmissions, and to then warn controllers of possible runway incursions; eventually also possibly providing the AI computer program with input from other existing technologies including ground-based radar, digital cameras and complex target-analytics software already in use and tested in airports such as Miami's.

We've all now learned that existing inexpensive AI programs can already understand speech potentially involving more than a million possible words and an almost infinite variety of subjects, and analyze it using its vast database to do incredible things such as writing a university thesis and even passing difficult professional exams.

In contrast, radio transmissions at airports use only a much smaller number of words and cover only a tiny number of well known topics, so existing AI programs can easily understand what is being said on the radio, and analyze it to help anticipate possible incursions, all in real time, argues Professor Banzhaf.

After only several months of operation, even a simple AI program should be able to learn how long each type of aircraft typically needs to taxi on each of the runways, how long it takes to become airborne once each type of aircraft begins its takeoff, the time it will take each type of aircraft to land from each approach and from a variety of altitudes and distances from the runway, and a myriad of other bits of valuable information which can help it calculate if any existing time-and-distance aircraft-separation requirements are likely to be violated, and/or if for any other reason a runway incursion seems likely.

In summary, the professor asks whether a simple test of using AI to warn about possible runway incursions isn't warranted.

http://banzhaf.net/   jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com   @profbanzhaf