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Why it matters: A Silicon Valley air travel business just recently finished an effective flight of a Cessna 208B Caravan freight aircraft autonomously. The historical flight occurred on November 21 however flew under the radar previously. The pilotless system, a production of Reliable Robots, was retrofitted to an aircraft that removed from Hollister Municipal Airport and landed securely approximately 12 minutes later on with no one aboard.
The taxi, the launch, the cruise, and the landing were all done autonomously, stated business piolet and Reliable Robots engineer Danah Tommalieh. A pilot did monitor the flight, however was found some 50 miles away at Reliable's control.
Trusted Robots teamed up with the airplane's producer, Textron Aviation, to equip it with all of the requisite software and hardware for complete autonomy. The platform agnostic system likewise includes numerous layers of redundancy for security's sake, and is stated to be able to prevent regulated flight into surface (CFIT) and loss of control in flight (LOC-I), which jointly represent many air travel deaths.
Textron Aviation is popular in the air travel neighborhood as the maker of Cessna, Beechcraft, and Hawker branded airplane. The Cessna 208B Caravan is among the world's most popular turboprop energy airplane with more than 3,000 systems having actually been provided to date. It can rollover 3,000 pounds of freight and can make use of much shorter runways, making it perfect for transport of time-sensitive, same-day and next-day deliveries. Ultimately, the system might even discover its method to traveler flights and provide tourists more versatility when scheduling a flight.
Back in October, Reliable revealed it was dealing with the United States Air Force to identify how its self-governing flight control system might operate in big multi-engine military craft like the KC-135 Stratotanker refueling jet to increase usage and reach near constant operation without needing to stress over issues like team repositioning.
According to a report from The Independent, Reliable Robots is looking for FAA accreditation for its system and wants to begin screening on bigger freight airplane in the future.