Fully autonomous pilots powered by artificial intelligence could help ease the looming pilot shortage, according to the head of a company working on the technology.
“We don’t have enough pilots to meet the surge in demand for what’s in the sky,” Marlin Labs CEO Matt George told Fox News. “As the demand for aviation increases around the world, we need to start looking at aviation system design and aerospace system design.”
A management consulting firm announces that the airline industry will be short of 13,300 pilots by 2032. Oliver Wyman Last year’s projections showed a shortfall of about 12,710 airmen. And the Air Force, one of Merlin’s major customers, has been short on pilot numbers by about 2,000 for years. According to the stars and stripeswas offering bonuses of up to $600,000 to retain experienced aviators.
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“World commercial traffic doubles every 15 years,” George said. “As billions of new consumers come online and want their packages delivered within two days or have access to aviation systems, we are changing the way we think about humanity’s relationship with the skies. We need to think differently.”
Merlin is easing the shortage by replacing one human pilot in the cockpit of a cargo plane with its software, and making the remaining aviators’ jobs easier by taking on some of their responsibilities. We aim to do both. George stressed that this will make flying safer, adding that his company’s systems mainly rely on traditional aviation technology, and AI is only used to fill in the gaps.
“The Merlin software is designed to perform what we call flight, navigation and communication functions traditionally performed by human pilots,” George said. “This system decides where the aircraft should go, how it should interact within the airspace, and even understand and respond to air traffic controller instructions.”
Merlin Labs CEO Matt George teased an upcoming announcement regarding AI pilot certification. (Courtesy of Snowpoint Ventures)
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As a result, human pilots are freed up to focus on the larger mission and “instead of using their brains to perform basic aviation functions, they can use their brains for important things,” George continued. .
Merlin announced last month that elements of its autonomous pilot will be tested and demonstrated on the Air Force’s KC-135 Stratotanker tanker. George also teased that “there will be announcements in the coming weeks about some of our final endpoints.” [civil] It is a certification process when starting a market launch. ”
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Merlin Research Institute has announced a partnership with the U.S. Air Force to test and demonstrate aspects of autonomous pilot software on the KC-135 Stratotanker. (Joel Lerner/Xinhua via Getty Images)
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Still, George emphasized that human pilots aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“We think the future is a combination of autonomy and humans,” George said. “This is not necessarily a large number of aircraft flying without people on board, but a large number of aircraft flying with a high degree of autonomy, supplementing the capabilities of humans on board the aircraft. ”
