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NASA: pioneers in intelligent flight control
Nowadays, the Artificial Intelligence group performs basic research in the areas of Artificial Intelligence Planning and Scheduling, with applications to science analysis, spacecraft operations, mission analysis, deep space network operations, and space transportation systems. But, how did all of it start?
By the 1950’s, with the increasing complexity and speed of aircrafts, designers realized that one way to achieve greater maneuverability was to use an approach that was latter named “Fly-by-wire” flight control. Fly-by-wire systems use the movements of the pilot’s flight controls to provide a reference of the desired flight envelope. Thereafter, these electrical signals go into the Flight Control Computers (FCC) to determine how the actuator of each of the control surfaces should move to meet the required aircraft handling qualities criteria.
Although now it seems like a common standard, it al began when NASA Dryden Flight Research Center started a novel research program to investigate applications of Artificial Intelligence to reduce the pilot’s workload after a flight controls failure.
The goal was to achieve an Intelligent Flight Control System through neural network software to adapt the flight control to changing aircraft characteristics. Overall, it was designed to incorporate a self-learning neural network…
