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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff looks dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor at how Stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as is typical of these occasions,
Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Where now? Who now? When? Now?
Speaker 1: That was actually a quote, Yes, he wasn't asking me that,
Speaker 1: And usually I do the first line of a novel.
Speaker 1: This time it was the first three sentences of a novel.
Speaker 1: But they were also short that I decided to string
Speaker 1: them together. You're crazy like that, you know, I'm crazy
Speaker 1: like a lot of things. So today we wanted to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about, um, well, something that Chris
Speaker 1: and I do all the time, which is to go
Speaker 1: on autopilot like we do in this podcast. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: every darn week. Um No, we wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: the autopilot systems in airplanes because you know, you often
Speaker 1: hear that phrase about switching on autopilot, But what does
Speaker 1: that actually mean? What's it? What does that entail? How
Speaker 1: did we come up with this idea, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: because it kind of has this sort of almost magical
Speaker 1: air about it for anyone who is uninformed about the
Speaker 1: way autopilot works. Right, Like, there's a big red button
Speaker 1: that says autopilot, you press it and pressed dough Everything's cool,
Speaker 1: you said air. Um, there's gonna be a lot of that.
Speaker 1: Let's get that out of the way right now. Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: And uh, I'm a fan of Patrick smith On. Salani
Speaker 1: has a column called Ask the Pilot, because he's a
Speaker 1: pilot and people ask him questions about things like what
Speaker 1: happens at one of the engines falls off a jet
Speaker 1: and you know that kind of and he answer bad things, yes,
Speaker 1: but you know, not as bad as if all the
Speaker 1: engines from the jet. Right. No, but I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: it depends on if you are under the jet at
Speaker 1: the time. That's true. Um, but yeah, I mean. And
Speaker 1: and one of the things that he says a lot
Speaker 1: of people, He's mentioned this several times. People seem to
Speaker 1: think that the pilot can get in the cockpit, close
Speaker 1: the door, push the red button, and the plane will
Speaker 1: fly itself to the next destination. And he gets out
Speaker 1: and thank you for flying with us, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: quite work. Then he collects the big fat check for
Speaker 1: all for pushing a button. Yeah, it doesn't really work
Speaker 1: that way, and you can do a lot, but it
Speaker 1: can't do that. It can it can even land a plane,
Speaker 1: depending on the conditions and the systems aboard. But let's uh,
Speaker 1: let's let's take it back a step first. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about sort of the development of autopilot. So way back
Speaker 1: in nineteen o eight, there was a fellow by the
Speaker 1: name of Elmer Sperry, and he was developing something called
Speaker 1: a gyro compass, and it was it was using a
Speaker 1: gyrocompass and other sorts of gyroscopes that in combination could
Speaker 1: work with the systems on a on a plane to
Speaker 1: allow a automated steering. Essentially, what it did was it
Speaker 1: just kept the steering steady. It's you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, this idea of just uh, you're honest,
Speaker 1: steady heading and it keeps you on that UM. And
Speaker 1: the first test flight of a a plane with um
Speaker 1: this sort of autopilot system was performed by Lawrence Burst Sperry,
Speaker 1: son of Elmer Sperry, which was again right around and
Speaker 1: it used four gyroscopes to help stabilize the plane. So
Speaker 1: the gyroscopes, depending on their attitude, and I don't mean
Speaker 1: whether they were friendly or not. Forget you, you could
Speaker 1: fly that playing yourself. I mean their position relative to
Speaker 1: the rest of the environment would dictate how the system
Speaker 1: would work. And so that was that they developed the
Speaker 1: first true autopilot system, which was later used by a
Speaker 1: fellow named Wiley Post which is just a great name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he's an His name is one of those
Speaker 1: names that you hear every once in a while. Um.
Speaker 1: He was famous back in in in his time, which
Speaker 1: was the earliest part of the twentieth century. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: famous aviator and his name sort of just comes up
Speaker 1: every once in a while. Is him? I know that name?
Speaker 1: Why is he famous? Well? Is it turns out he uh, well,
Speaker 1: he flew across country. Yeah, and made headlines with that, certainly,
Speaker 1: and then he flew around the world. And the first
Speaker 1: time he flew around the world, he flew around the
Speaker 1: world with a navigator. Took a long time for him
Speaker 1: to get all the way around the world. Um. And
Speaker 1: but the navigator was there too, not just navigate, but
Speaker 1: also make sure that that Wiley remained wildly and that
Speaker 1: he was alert and thank you, alert and capable of
Speaker 1: maneuvering the plane and not just you know, any time
Speaker 1: anyone has to do a monotonous task for a really
Speaker 1: long time, there's a danger that we will go on
Speaker 1: autopilot as and we'll stop paying attention and then disaster
Speaker 1: can can strike. So he had a navigator. Well, then
Speaker 1: he decided that he wanted to try and do a
Speaker 1: solo flight around the world and this is three and so, uh,
Speaker 1: in order to do a solo flight and still be
Speaker 1: able to rest and you know, because these these flights
Speaker 1: were taking hours and hours and hours at a time
Speaker 1: just but you know, from one spot to the next
Speaker 1: before refueling and uh uh you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: long time to stay awake. So he would have had this, uh,
Speaker 1: this system developed by the Sperry's that would help keep
Speaker 1: the plane on course so that he could rest because otherwise, uh,
Speaker 1: he would probably have gone crazy. You go without sleep
Speaker 1: long enough and you start to go bunkers. So that
Speaker 1: was a very important development, and it's today autopilot is
Speaker 1: part of something a little more sophisticated. Back then, it
Speaker 1: was it was a fairly simple system. But now it's
Speaker 1: part of the automatic flight control system, which in turn
Speaker 1: is one component of an airplane's avionics system. And before
Speaker 1: we go too far into this, I do want to
Speaker 1: say we have an article on how stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: com about how autopilot works, and it's an excellent article.
Speaker 1: I do recommend you go check that out if you
Speaker 1: want more information. We're going to give you the rundown
Speaker 1: on it, but it's it will help a lot if
Speaker 1: you want to look further into it. There's a great
Speaker 1: article on our site is by William Harris as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, who used to be one of my
Speaker 1: writers as well. So an avionics system in case you're
Speaker 1: wondering what that is, you know, we just mentioned that
Speaker 1: the the automatic flight control system is part of avion X.
Speaker 1: Avionics refers to electronic systems aboard a plane that are
Speaker 1: really designed to help control the plane and the key
Speaker 1: elements of flight. And the other systems that are involved
Speaker 1: include things like navigation, collision avoidance, communication, UH and weather systems.
Speaker 1: So these are the very important systems that allow pilots
Speaker 1: to do their job, you know, and get as much
Speaker 1: information and have as much control over the aircraft as possible.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, they're really the original purpose of the
Speaker 1: autopilot was to help pilots be able to take little
Speaker 1: rest breaks, especially when doing something that's truly tedious, like
Speaker 1: cruising at high altitude. When you're well, you're you're you've
Speaker 1: reached your your cruising altitude like thirty feet and that's it.
Speaker 1: You're you're stuck there for however long the flight is
Speaker 1: going to be before you have to start taking her down,
Speaker 1: and that can get you know, if you if you've
Speaker 1: got several flights today, that can get pretty tiresome. So
Speaker 1: the autopilot helps the the pilot kind of offload that
Speaker 1: so that the pilot is in the best shape to
Speaker 1: bring the plane in for landing or dealing with any
Speaker 1: other unusual circumstances or even things like turbulence. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it's a smooth flight, it shouldn't be much trouble
Speaker 1: for the autopilot to keep the plane going where it's going. Um.
Speaker 1: And and it does that through a series of well
Speaker 1: course corrections. Really um. As it turns out, it's basically, uh,
Speaker 1: the idea behind the auto autopilot itself is pretty simple. Um,
Speaker 1: you have several control surfaces and we talked about this
Speaker 1: in the past. You have control surfaces on the wings
Speaker 1: and on the vertical stabilizer uh known to those of
Speaker 1: us and the uh you just talking about planes sort
Speaker 1: of world that tail um and uh. You know you
Speaker 1: basically controls uh. It consents what's going on. It says, oh,
Speaker 1: well we're descending a little bit. We need to adjust
Speaker 1: the control surfaces to change the airflow and get the
Speaker 1: plane back up. You know these ten feet that we've dropped. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's at all it does is it's basically and
Speaker 1: I'm grossly oversimplifying it, but um on purpose. So Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: all it's doing is saying, oh, we need to we
Speaker 1: need to fix this, we need to adjust this and
Speaker 1: get it back to where we were. Um. And then
Speaker 1: it just makes these very subtle course corrections to get
Speaker 1: to keep the plane more or less where it is
Speaker 1: when the pilot hits the big red button. I don't
Speaker 1: even know if the big red button exists. It's slang
Speaker 1: for what we're talking about. Right. So, so to get
Speaker 1: a little more in depth with this, uh, you you
Speaker 1: have a closed system, right, and that closed system includes
Speaker 1: sensors that are on these control surfaces as well. As
Speaker 1: other sensors that are part of the planes systems that
Speaker 1: provide information to a computer. Now, the computer takes this
Speaker 1: information compares it to whatever command the pilot has given.
Speaker 1: For example, the pilot might say I want to maintain
Speaker 1: this altitude, this speed, and this course. And then what
Speaker 1: happens is the computer takes the information gathered by the sensors,
Speaker 1: compares it to the command given by the pilot, and
Speaker 1: then makes any adjustments necessary in order to maintain that
Speaker 1: that command. Now that might mean uh, sending information to
Speaker 1: a a servo that will adjust one of those those
Speaker 1: control surfaces to make a bit of a change, either
Speaker 1: to turn the plane a little better, raise and go
Speaker 1: up in altitude or lower in altitude, whatever is necessary
Speaker 1: in order to maintain the command that was set by
Speaker 1: the pilot. So those those three basic control surfaces that
Speaker 1: Chris was alluding to include elevators, which that's on the
Speaker 1: tail of the plane, and that helps control the plane's pitch.
Speaker 1: So if you imagine a plane that let's say that
Speaker 1: you're balancing a plane along its length, so it's you know,
Speaker 1: it can tilt forward or backward the pitches. That's what
Speaker 1: the pitch does. It allows the plane to either go
Speaker 1: up or down uh in uh angled in that way.
Speaker 1: Then you have the rudder, which controls the yaw that
Speaker 1: that's what twists the plane. And then you have the ailerons,
Speaker 1: which are on the rear edge of the wings. That's
Speaker 1: what roll is the plane to once that or the other.
Speaker 1: All right, So those are your three basic control surfaces
Speaker 1: that can do these these changes to the plan's attitude
Speaker 1: in flight. And depending upon the autopilot system you have,
Speaker 1: you may be able to have one or two or
Speaker 1: all three of those under automatic control. So, and it's
Speaker 1: pretty easy to understand. A one access one access rather
Speaker 1: control system will control just one of those three surfaces,
Speaker 1: and it's usually the ailerons. If it's just gonna be one,
Speaker 1: it's usually that. Two access controls usually controls the elevators
Speaker 1: and the ailerons, and then three excess controls controls all three.
Speaker 1: Clearly you wouldn't you don't have like a fourth one, poppa,
Speaker 1: and then hey, what's this, dude? Forget you rudder? You
Speaker 1: never get controlled. Uh, it's not the case. So the
Speaker 1: depending on that system, the autopilot is in charge of
Speaker 1: making sure that the any adjustments gets sent out to
Speaker 1: those different control surfaces to maintained the command that the
Speaker 1: pilot has made. And the sensors include other things like
Speaker 1: gyroscopes which help determine the actual attitude of the plane,
Speaker 1: how it's you know, whether it's tilted in one side
Speaker 1: or the other, or the pitch is wrong. That's what
Speaker 1: the gyroscopes can help with. And then you have accelerators,
Speaker 1: so obviously determining what the speed is of the plane,
Speaker 1: whether it's undergoing any sort of acceleration or deceleration, altimeters
Speaker 1: which tell you how high up the plane is. That
Speaker 1: seems relatively important. And then a compass which tells you
Speaker 1: which way you're facing. Also the more. But over the
Speaker 1: last several years, they the autopilot system has also depended
Speaker 1: upon GPS receivers, which can let the autopilot system know
Speaker 1: where the plane is geographically and thus make any sort
Speaker 1: of course corrections in order to even plot a course
Speaker 1: to a destination. So there's a little bit more that
Speaker 1: can be offloaded onto a computer system. Now we're still
Speaker 1: not to the point where we're gonna have robot pilots.
Speaker 1: You know, these these autopilot systems are meant to help
Speaker 1: UM help pilots rest and and and plan for other
Speaker 1: parts of the flight. But they're not replacements. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: make sure if you're a pilot that you watch what
Speaker 1: you eat before you, uh, you know, take over the controls. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I had to Lasagna. This is Bob. I'm mixing those
Speaker 1: up because it's airplane and airplane too. Okay, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you can you can tell um. You know from the
Speaker 1: very first uh when Wiley Post was using the the
Speaker 1: early Sperry system UM, which was based solely on on
Speaker 1: gyroscopes and compass readings, you know that that was a
Speaker 1: very simple version of what would later become these systems.
Speaker 1: And now that we have all these different UM, different
Speaker 1: types of sensors and different types of input, the the
Speaker 1: autopilot system can be a lot more accurate than than
Speaker 1: those of the past UM and it has become a
Speaker 1: very very useful tool for an aircraft pilot to to
Speaker 1: rely on. Yeah. And also, uh, I should point out
Speaker 1: that these systems, with the servo mechanisms and everything that
Speaker 1: help control the surfaces, they are independent of the manual
Speaker 1: systems that are used by the pilot when the pilot
Speaker 1: controls the plane. Whenever he or she is controlling the plane. UH.
Speaker 1: It's an independent series of of servos and every and
Speaker 1: other elements that keep these services moving. And the reason
Speaker 1: for that is because autopilot systems, like any other system,
Speaker 1: can fail, and UH, in the case of failure, you
Speaker 1: want to have the option for manual control so that
Speaker 1: the pilot can take over and everything will be fine.
Speaker 1: And so in order to do that, you have to
Speaker 1: make sure there's some redundant systems there, because if it's
Speaker 1: a servo mechanism failure, which is frequently the case in
Speaker 1: an autopilot failure, then you want to make sure you
Speaker 1: still have a way of controlling that surface area or
Speaker 1: else you're really stuck. You've got some serious problems if
Speaker 1: if a system like that fails. Over Macho grande, I'll
Speaker 1: never be over Mancho grande. UH the UH. And the
Speaker 1: other thing that's important to remember is that if an
Speaker 1: autopilot system is engaged, meaning that it's working, not that
Speaker 1: it has found the right person and they're going to
Speaker 1: build a family together, settle down and have a little
Speaker 1: being a little extra goofy this morning for reasons I
Speaker 1: can't understand, other than the fact that we were not
Speaker 1: able to come in our normal studio time because stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind was taking up the space in
Speaker 1: front of us. So blame them anyway. Yes, when the
Speaker 1: autopilot system is is active, you want to be able
Speaker 1: to turn that off before you engage manual systems because otherwise,
Speaker 1: what's happening is you're fighting the autopilot because the changes
Speaker 1: you make, what's going to have is the sensors an
Speaker 1: autopilot system pick up the fact that you've changed the
Speaker 1: or or that conditions have changed. So let's say that
Speaker 1: you're trying to bring the plane down to a different
Speaker 1: altitude and you start to do this and autopilot is
Speaker 1: already engaged the sensors and autopilots start to say, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, now, we're now we're going lower. And he
Speaker 1: told me, he told me at the beginning of this
Speaker 1: flight that we wanted to maintain thirty four thousand feet, So,
Speaker 1: gosh darn it, I'm gonna change the the altitude of
Speaker 1: this here plane. And so disengaging the autopilot is very
Speaker 1: important before taking over manually. Now, I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: many systems out there that have sort of an automatic
Speaker 1: disengaging uh process, so that if a pilot were to
Speaker 1: take the controls, the autopilot would would turn off, so
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't have a pilot and autopilot fight over
Speaker 1: where a plane is going. But there have been in
Speaker 1: the past a few UM accidents and incidents that were
Speaker 1: UH linked in one way or another two autopilot failures.
Speaker 1: A lot of experts that I have looked at, UH
Speaker 1: the writings rather not the actual experts. I mean I
Speaker 1: look at them too, but they get a little self
Speaker 1: conscious after a while. But according to their research, it
Speaker 1: seems to me like autopilot failure is not generally a
Speaker 1: cause for for accidents. It tends to be something else
Speaker 1: that's happened. There have been a few cases where autopilot
Speaker 1: was disengaged and then perhaps turned back on again at
Speaker 1: a time when a plane was experiencing trouble, and that
Speaker 1: didn't help matters. But it doesn't look like autopilot failures
Speaker 1: often result in catastrophe, mainly because we have these well
Speaker 1: trained pilots that are in the cockpits that can take
Speaker 1: over when that happens. That's true, UM and UH, I
Speaker 1: think it's time to bring up some negative feedback, the
Speaker 1: negative feedback loop. Yeah, now, a feedback loop is basically
Speaker 1: a and and this doesn't necessarily have to be a
Speaker 1: an electronic thing. I was reading an article and wired
Speaker 1: about this. If you've ever seen those, um uh, those
Speaker 1: speed indicator things on the side of the road that say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know speed limits thirty five, you're doing forty two,
Speaker 1: pal slow it down and it flashes at you. UM,
Speaker 1: that's creating a feedback loop. They used that example specifically,
Speaker 1: so basically, UM, that article was talking about how they're
Speaker 1: actually fairly effective um at getting people to slow down
Speaker 1: because they're providing you feedback on what you're doing. And uh,
Speaker 1: that sort of creates this sense of, well, I should
Speaker 1: probably behave myself and stay close to the speed limit
Speaker 1: in this area, UM, I don't want to get pulled over,
Speaker 1: or or some people are thinking I don't want to
Speaker 1: get caught and other people are thinking I am going
Speaker 1: too fast for this neighborhood. Exactly. I think I think
Speaker 1: most of the the people I encounter are of the first
Speaker 1: part where they look around, like, I don't see any cups.
Speaker 1: Just screwed up the levels there too, I'm sure probably, um,
Speaker 1: but but in this case, uh, the autopilot system uses
Speaker 1: a negative feedback loop. Um. So let's say you're flying
Speaker 1: at thirty four thousand feet okay, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I would imagine when I used ten feet before that
Speaker 1: was a I'm thinking that's probably a fairly subtle change
Speaker 1: for a plane in flight. So let's say it goes
Speaker 1: down ten feet, um, maybe as a result of a
Speaker 1: little turbulence or something, and uh, it sets off a
Speaker 1: you know, a signal in the processors because the sensors
Speaker 1: have detected that there is something. So that's negative feedback,
Speaker 1: and it says, oh it's something's changed. It's not supposed
Speaker 1: to be this way, fix it. And so it's just
Speaker 1: constantly going through this loop, is it okay? Yes, all right,
Speaker 1: never mind, yes, never mind, it's okay, we're tilting, all right,
Speaker 1: fix that? Yes, yeah, it's Um. If you want to
Speaker 1: know another negative feedback loop mechanism that you're probably pretty familiar,
Speaker 1: whether we did an entire episode about it, the thermostat.
Speaker 1: I because let's say you set your thermostat for we'll
Speaker 1: say seventy degrees, because I like it right around there
Speaker 1: in my house. Um so seventy degrees. So when the
Speaker 1: temperatures at seventy everything is copathetic. Nothing gets turned on
Speaker 1: as soon as it starts hitting seventy one. Then you
Speaker 1: have the system click into place the air conditioning. The
Speaker 1: air conditioning system itself starts to starts to fire up,
Speaker 1: which ironically makes it cooler and uh then starts blowing
Speaker 1: cool air through the through the house. And once the
Speaker 1: air has become cool enough around the thermostat and the
Speaker 1: internal thermometer detects it, then it switches back off again.
Speaker 1: And that's a negative feedback loop system. I'm just glad
Speaker 1: you've upgraded from that swamp cooler. I'm just glad I
Speaker 1: upgraded from opening up all the windows and shouting at people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: are happy with that. They are, uh yeah, yelled get
Speaker 1: off my lawn. But I live in an apartment, so
Speaker 1: it's awkward. M Um yeah now uh yeah, now sorry
Speaker 1: I just said yeah now twice three times. Then okay. So,
Speaker 1: negative feedback loops use a receptor, a control center, and
Speaker 1: an effector. Basically, the receptor is what's figuring out what's
Speaker 1: going on. It sends information to the control center. Um,
Speaker 1: and then the affect or is the thing that makes
Speaker 1: the change. So yeah, and the system in system of
Speaker 1: the autopilot, we're talking about the sensors are the receptor.
Speaker 1: There are many different kinds in this case. Yes, the
Speaker 1: control the control center is the computer that takes in
Speaker 1: all this information, and the effector are the servo mechanisms
Speaker 1: that the computer sends commands to that then make adjustments
Speaker 1: to those control surfaces so that the plane does whatever
Speaker 1: it was the pilot wanted to do. And these systems
Speaker 1: are incredibly sophisticated now to the point where, like I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, they can actually land a plane and sometimes
Speaker 1: are used to land a plane. Not not generally speaking.
Speaker 1: Most of the time it's a human pilot that's landing
Speaker 1: a plane. But in cases where visibility is really limited, Uh,
Speaker 1: there are times where they they will they will incorporate
Speaker 1: an autopilot system in order to bring the plane in
Speaker 1: and land it when there's a fear that maybe human
Speaker 1: failure could play a role in a safe landing. So
Speaker 1: it's not common, but it can happen. Yeah, they prefer
Speaker 1: not to do that. Um, it's usually better to that.
Speaker 1: That's not a time when you want, uh the system
Speaker 1: to fail. It's it's usually a pretty a pretty dramatic
Speaker 1: turn of events for that to happen because normally pilots
Speaker 1: don't bring planes into UH to UH to an airport
Speaker 1: where there's already that kind of limited visibility. If there,
Speaker 1: if they can help it, they'll usually divert to another
Speaker 1: really air traffic control will tell them to divert, divert
Speaker 1: to another airport UH that they can get to safely,
Speaker 1: rather than go into an airport where there's going to
Speaker 1: be conditions that will severely limit visibility. Now that's not
Speaker 1: always possible. I mean in commercial flights that tends to
Speaker 1: happen quite a bit, because you know the past, your
Speaker 1: safety is so important, But with something like a military flight,
Speaker 1: it may not be a possibility. So um, different cases,
Speaker 1: depending on the whole scenario there. But it is possible
Speaker 1: and it has happened now. UM, I don't know. Did
Speaker 1: you want to talk about other types of autopilot at all?
Speaker 1: What you mean like cruise control? Well, I was talking
Speaker 1: specifically about cars because that's been that's been coming up
Speaker 1: a lot lately. Things I've been talking about how UH
Speaker 1: in three years cars will be driving themselves. Well, they're
Speaker 1: already doing that. If you work for Google, Yes, they're
Speaker 1: also rear ending people. Um, people are backing up into them,
Speaker 1: you know it. They feel like there's no one in
Speaker 1: that car. Reverse boom, Google owes me money. That's all allegedly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got I used the word allegedly. It's all right,
Speaker 1: that's the way that works. Send hate mail too. Um. Actually, uh, well,
Speaker 1: of course Google is testing systems like that. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know that it is a little more difficult in
Speaker 1: some ways for a car, because for a plane, you
Speaker 1: know it's going that way and there's probably nothing in
Speaker 1: front of it directly. Um. Generally speaking, air traffic is
Speaker 1: less severe, less around than ground traffic. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: once you get toward an airport, then yes, air traffic
Speaker 1: starts to pick up, but by then usually pilots have
Speaker 1: disengaged the autopilot system anyway. But with roads, you have
Speaker 1: things like, um, weather conditions trick into account, slippery roads,
Speaker 1: you've got twists and turns, You've got squirrels. Construction, Um,
Speaker 1: don't have a whole lot of construction at th feet.
Speaker 1: People who are not paying attention while they're driving in
Speaker 1: front of you. People who are applying makeup shaving so
Speaker 1: um shaving while applying makeup all reading Yeah so um yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're working on systems to do similar kinds of
Speaker 1: things with cars, but it's a much more challenging or
Speaker 1: at least I think so much more challenging proposition to
Speaker 1: put that kind of a system in a car, because
Speaker 1: there's so many more factors that uh an autopilot would
Speaker 1: have to take into account. Of course, now they are
Speaker 1: it's pretty common to find at least the higher end
Speaker 1: models with sensors that will help you park. Um, they have,
Speaker 1: you know, those auto parking cars, the whole collision detection
Speaker 1: stuff so that it can tell when it's close to
Speaker 1: another object and thus uh adjust the control so that
Speaker 1: you avoid colliding with it, which use uh you know,
Speaker 1: some radar and cameras, infrared systems, um, you know these things.
Speaker 1: Lane changing. I like that system to where um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's able to detect where the lanes are and kind
Speaker 1: of keep you in place, make sure that you know
Speaker 1: you're not gonna smash into someone who's in your blind spot, yes,
Speaker 1: which is very important, especially if there are a lot
Speaker 1: of bicyclists around. There's you know, there's these systems are
Speaker 1: are emerging for the for cars because the vehicle's brilliant
Speaker 1: airplane is one too, but there are emerging. It's kind
Speaker 1: of an emerging technology for cars. And one thing that
Speaker 1: will really help this technology propagate is when we actually
Speaker 1: see it and lots and lots and lots of different cars,
Speaker 1: because then you can have a system where the cars
Speaker 1: are just one element within the system. Now, see in
Speaker 1: the plane, we're talking about a closed system that's all
Speaker 1: contained within the plane itself. With something like cars and traffic,
Speaker 1: you're talking about a system that could, in theory, be
Speaker 1: a meta system, a system of systems. Each car would
Speaker 1: have its own system, including things like sensors for collision
Speaker 1: detection and lane detection, all that sort of stuff, as
Speaker 1: well as GPS receivers so that the car knows where
Speaker 1: it is and is navigating to the appropriate destination UH
Speaker 1: and maybe even things like other kinds of radio receivers
Speaker 1: so that the STEM has information about traffic reports and
Speaker 1: construction delays and things like that so it can reroute
Speaker 1: around those. But then you have a system of systems
Speaker 1: where you could have an entire UH infrastructure that can
Speaker 1: detect where these cars are based upon their own electronic signatures.
Speaker 1: If you've built in stuff that's directly in the roads
Speaker 1: or part of the whole infrastructure UH. And then the
Speaker 1: system of systems could help maintain a good fluid traffic
Speaker 1: by helping these these individual cars route to the appropriate
Speaker 1: destination in the most efficient way possible. So then the
Speaker 1: closed system it doesn't isn't truly closed because it becomes
Speaker 1: part of a larger system. Uh, that's pretty I mean,
Speaker 1: it's incredibly complex, and we're not there yet, not by
Speaker 1: a long shot, because we would we would need not
Speaker 1: just lots and lots and lots of cars that have
Speaker 1: these these sensors and these mechanisms incorporate into the design
Speaker 1: of the car itself. We would have to go and
Speaker 1: build out the infrastructure in the cities, which is an
Speaker 1: entirely different prospect. I mean that's that might be slightly expensive,
Speaker 1: and it might take more than a decade to complete.
Speaker 1: I mean, based upon how long certain streets in Atlanta
Speaker 1: have had metal plates on top of potholes, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: guess that incorporating such a sophisticated system that would need
Speaker 1: to be really pervasive throughout the entire infrastructure would probably
Speaker 1: take about two thousand years. Well, it would take um
Speaker 1: you know, depending on the size of the area covered.
Speaker 1: Like a municipality could probably do it. A lot more
Speaker 1: quickly than a nation covering all of its uh you know,
Speaker 1: major highways and um and then you start talking about
Speaker 1: surface streets and back roads and things like that, it
Speaker 1: could take a very very long time. Plus there will
Speaker 1: be people who are loath to give up their older
Speaker 1: cars that don't have these systems. You know, even even
Speaker 1: if there's a new system that has manual versus automatic,
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of people who would
Speaker 1: be um who would have reservations about switching to an
Speaker 1: automated driver system. Either they would feel powerless in that situation,
Speaker 1: or they just they just genuinely enjoy driving. Because I've
Speaker 1: heard there are such people. There are such people that
Speaker 1: I don't understand them. They come from a different planet
Speaker 1: than I do. But you don't, I don't. I don't judge.
Speaker 1: You know, they can be crazy. I don't. That's fine.
Speaker 1: I know lots of crazy people. I work with. Most
Speaker 1: of them, or most of people I work with, are crazy.
Speaker 1: They weren't that way when I started. I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened. Yeah, anyway, So yeah, these autopilot systems are
Speaker 1: finding their ways into other different vehicles, so cars, boats
Speaker 1: as well, and other sorts of vehicles, and I expect
Speaker 1: that will continue to see that. I mean this whole
Speaker 1: idea of an automated system that helps you get to
Speaker 1: where you're going. Uh, it's just another example of us
Speaker 1: trying to create technologies that make our lives easier, more
Speaker 1: convenient and uh and uh paving the way for our
Speaker 1: robot overlords to easily conquer us when they choose to
Speaker 1: rise up against us. Awesome, as in the documentary Terminator. Alright, then, excellent.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we covered this topic. And now I'm
Speaker 1: going to go and turn my house into a luddite
Speaker 1: luxury home. So lots of lots of this unfinished wood. Really,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm looking at, guys, isn't it good? So you, guys,
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for future topics, whether it's
Speaker 1: a reference to a Beatles song or possibly something not
Speaker 1: connected at all with technology, because we've had a few
Speaker 1: of those and sometimes we consider them just for funzies,
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Speaker 1: W and Chris and I will talk to you again
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