Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And you know what time it is.
Speaker 1: It's showtime. Showtime. Also time for a classic episode tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: And this episode originally published on May one, two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: Chris and I phoned it in. We walked into this
Speaker 1: podcast room. We just sat down and we went on autopilot.
Speaker 1: But that's okay because the episode was tech Stuff goes
Speaker 1: on autopilot, So get ready to learn all about autopilot.
Speaker 1: Take it away past Jonathan and Chris. So today we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk a little bit about, um, well, something
Speaker 1: that Chris and I do all the time, which is
Speaker 1: to go on autopilot like we do in this podcast
Speaker 1: oh every darn week. Um No, we want to talk
Speaker 1: about the autopilot systems in airplanes because you know, you
Speaker 1: often hear that phrase about switching on autopilot, But what
Speaker 1: does that actually mean? What's it? What does that entail?
Speaker 1: How did we come up with this idea? You know,
Speaker 1: because it kind of has a 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: that kind of And he answered bad things, yes, but
Speaker 1: you know, not as bad as if all the engines
Speaker 1: on the jet. Right, No, but I'm thinking about it
Speaker 1: depends on if you are under the jet at the time.
Speaker 1: That's true. Um, but yeah, I mean. And and one
Speaker 1: of the things that he says a lot of people,
Speaker 1: He's mentioned this several times. People seem to think that
Speaker 1: the pilot can get in the cockpit, close the door,
Speaker 1: push the red button, and the plane will fly itself
Speaker 1: to the next destination. And he gets out and thank
Speaker 1: you for flying with us, And it doesn't quite work.
Speaker 1: Then he collects the big fat check for all for
Speaker 1: pushing a button. Yeah, it doesn't really work that way,
Speaker 1: and you can do a lot, but it can't do that.
Speaker 1: It can it can even land a plane depending on
Speaker 1: the conditions and the systems aboard. But let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: let's take it back a step first. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: sort of the development of autopilot. So way back in
Speaker 1: nine there was a fellow by the name of Elmer Sperry,
Speaker 1: and he was developing something called a gyro compass, and
Speaker 1: it was it was using a gyrocompass and other sorts
Speaker 1: of gyroscopes that in combination could work with a system
Speaker 1: on an on a plane to allow a automated steering. Essentially,
Speaker 1: what it did was it just kept the steering steady.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's kind of like, you know, this
Speaker 1: idea of just uh, you're on a steady heading and
Speaker 1: it keeps you on that. UM And the first test
Speaker 1: flight of a a plane with um this sort of
Speaker 1: autopilot system was performed by Lawrence Burst Sperry, son of
Speaker 1: Elmer Sperry, which was again right around nineteen o eight,
Speaker 1: and they used four gyroscopes to help stabilize the plane.
Speaker 1: So the gyroscopes depending on their attitude. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean whether they were friendly or not. Forget you, you
Speaker 1: could fly to the playing yourself. I mean their position
Speaker 1: relative to the rest of the environment would dictate how
Speaker 1: the system would work. And so that was that they
Speaker 1: developed the first true autopilot system, which was later used
Speaker 1: by a fellow named Wiley Post which is just a
Speaker 1: great name. Yeah, you know, he's an His name is
Speaker 1: one of those names that you hear every once in
Speaker 1: a while. Um. He was famous back in in in
Speaker 1: his time, which 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 Yes, and
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 it tension, and then
Speaker 1: disaster can can strike. So he had a navigator. Well,
Speaker 1: then he decided that he wanted to try and do
Speaker 1: a solo flight around the world, and this is three
Speaker 1: and so in order to do a solo flight and
Speaker 1: still be able to rest and you know, because these
Speaker 1: these flights were taking hours and hours and hours at
Speaker 1: a time just but you know, from one spot to
Speaker 1: the next before refueling and uh uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a long time to stay awake. So he would
Speaker 1: have had this, uh, this system developed by the Sperry's
Speaker 1: that would help keep the plane on course so that
Speaker 1: he could rest because otherwise, uh, he would probably have
Speaker 1: gone crazy. You know, you go without sleep long enough
Speaker 1: and you start to go bunkers. So that was a
Speaker 1: very important development, and it's today autopilot is part of
Speaker 1: something a little more sophisticated. Back then it was it
Speaker 1: was a fairly simple system, but now it's part of
Speaker 1: the auto matic flight control system. Which in turn is
Speaker 1: one component of an airplane's avionics system. And before we
Speaker 1: go too far into this, I do want to say
Speaker 1: we have an article on how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: about how autopilot works, and it's an excellent article. I
Speaker 1: do recommend you go check that out if you want
Speaker 1: more information. We're going to give you the rundown on it,
Speaker 1: but it's it will help a lot if you want
Speaker 1: to look further into it. There's a great article on
Speaker 1: our site is by William Harris as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: who used to be one of my writers as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so an avionic system in case you're wondering
Speaker 1: what that is, you know, we just mentioned that the
Speaker 1: 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 to do their job and get as much information
Speaker 1: 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 a day, that can get pretty tiresome.
Speaker 1: So the autopilot helps the the pilot kind of offload
Speaker 1: that so that the pilot is in the best shape
Speaker 1: to bring the plane in for landing or dealing with
Speaker 1: any 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 h It consents what's going on. It says, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we're descending a little bit. We need to adjust the
Speaker 1: control surfaces to change the airflow and get the plane
Speaker 1: 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 playing
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, and that closed system includes sensors
Speaker 1: that are on these control surfaces as well as other
Speaker 1: sensors that are part of the planes systems that provide
Speaker 1: information to a computer. Now, the computer takes this information
Speaker 1: compares it to whatever command the pilot has given. For example,
Speaker 1: the pilot might say I want to maintain this altitude,
Speaker 1: this speed, and this course. And then what happens is
Speaker 1: the computer takes the information gathered by the sensors, compares
Speaker 1: it to the command given by the pilot, and then
Speaker 1: makes any adjustments necessary in order to maintain that that command.
Speaker 1: Now that might mean sending information to a a servo
Speaker 1: that will adjust one of those those control surfaces to
Speaker 1: make a bit of a change, either to turn the
Speaker 1: plane a little better, raise and go up in altitude
Speaker 1: or lower in altitude, whatever is necessary in order to
Speaker 1: maintain the command that was set by the pilot. So
Speaker 1: those those three basic control surfaces that Chris was alluding
Speaker 1: to include elevators, which that's on the tail of the plane,
Speaker 1: and that helps control the plane's pitch. So if you
Speaker 1: imagine a plane that let's say that you're balancing a
Speaker 1: plane along its length, so it's you know, it can
Speaker 1: tilt forward or backward the pitches. That's what the pitch does.
Speaker 1: It allows the plane to either go up or down
Speaker 1: uh in uh angled in that way. Then you have
Speaker 1: the rudder, which controls the y'aw that that's what twists
Speaker 1: the plane. And then you have the ailerons, which are
Speaker 1: on the your edge of the wings. That's what rolls
Speaker 1: the plane to once that or the other. All right,
Speaker 1: So those are your three basic control surfaces that can
Speaker 1: do these these changes to the plane's attitude in flight.
Speaker 1: And depending upon the autopilot system you have, you may
Speaker 1: be able to have one or two or all three
Speaker 1: of those under automatic control. So, and it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to understand. A one access, one access rather control system
Speaker 1: will control just one of those three surfaces, and it's
Speaker 1: usually the ailerons. If it's just gonna be one, it's
Speaker 1: usually that. Two access controls usually controls the elevators and
Speaker 1: the ailerons, and then three excess controls controls all three. Clearly,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't don't have like a fourth one poppat and
Speaker 1: then hey, what's this do forget you rudder? You never
Speaker 1: get controlled? Uh, it's not the case. So the depending
Speaker 1: on that system, the autopilot is in charge of making
Speaker 1: sure that the any adjustments gets send out to those
Speaker 1: different control surfaces to maintain the command that the pilot
Speaker 1: has made and the sensors include other things like gyroscopes,
Speaker 1: which help determine the actual attitude of the plane, how
Speaker 1: it's you know, whether it's tilted in one side or
Speaker 1: the other, or the pitch is wrong. That's what the
Speaker 1: gyroscopes can help with. And then you have acceleraters, so
Speaker 1: obviously determining what the speed is of the plane, whether
Speaker 1: it's undergoing any sort of acceleration or deceleration, altimeters which
Speaker 1: tell you how high up the plane is. That seems
Speaker 1: relatively important. And then a compass which tells you which
Speaker 1: way you're facing. Also the more. But over the last
Speaker 1: several years, the the autopilot system has also depended upon
Speaker 1: GPS receivers, which can let the autopilot system know where
Speaker 1: the plane is geographically and thus make any sort of
Speaker 1: course corrections in order to even plotical course to a destination.
Speaker 1: So there's a little bit more that can be offloaded
Speaker 1: onto a computer system. Now we're still not to the
Speaker 1: point where we're gonna have robot pilots. You know, these
Speaker 1: these autopilot systems are meant to help um help pilots
Speaker 1: rest and and and plan for other parts of the flight.
Speaker 1: But they're not replacements. Yeah, so make sure if you're
Speaker 1: a pilot that you watch what you eat before you,
Speaker 1: uh take over the controls. Oh, yes, I had to lasagna.
Speaker 1: This is bob. I'm mixing those up because it's airplane
Speaker 1: and airplane too. Okay, yeah, but yeah, you can you
Speaker 1: can tell um. You know from the very first uh
Speaker 1: when Wiley Post was using the the early Sperry system UM,
Speaker 1: which was based solely on on gyroscopes and compass readings,
Speaker 1: you know that that was a very simple version of
Speaker 1: what would later become these systems. And now that we
Speaker 1: have all these different um uh, different types of sensors
Speaker 1: and different types of input, the autopilot system can be
Speaker 1: a lot more accurate than those of the past UM
Speaker 1: and it has become a very very useful tool for
Speaker 1: an aircraft pilot to to rely on. Yeah. And also, uh,
Speaker 1: I should point out that these systems, with the servo
Speaker 1: mechanisms and everything that help control the surfaces, they are
Speaker 1: independent of the manual systems that are used by the
Speaker 1: pilot when the pilot controls the plane. Whenever he or
Speaker 1: she is controlling the plane, uh, it's an independent series
Speaker 1: of of servos and every and other elements that keep
Speaker 1: these surfaces moving. And the reason for that is because
Speaker 1: autopilot systems, like any other system, can fail, and UH
Speaker 1: in the case of failure, you want to have the
Speaker 1: option for manual control so that the pilot can take
Speaker 1: over and everything will be fine. And so in order
Speaker 1: to do that, you have to make sure there's some
Speaker 1: redundant systems there because as if it's a servo mechanism failure,
Speaker 1: which is frequently the case in an autopilot failure, then
Speaker 1: you want to make sure you still have a way
Speaker 1: of controlling that surface area or else you're really stuck.
Speaker 1: You've got some serious problems if if a system like
Speaker 1: that fails. Over, Macho grande, I'll never be over, Mancho grande.
Speaker 1: We've got more to say about autopilot in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: The other thing that's important to remember is that if
Speaker 1: an autopilot system is engaged, meaning that it's working, not
Speaker 1: that it has found the right person and they're going
Speaker 1: to build a family together system. So a down and
Speaker 1: have a little being a little extra goofy this morning.
Speaker 1: For reasons I can't understand, other than the fact that
Speaker 1: we were not able to come in our normal studio
Speaker 1: time because stuff to blow your mind was taking up
Speaker 1: the space in front of us. So blame them anyway. Yes,
Speaker 1: when the autopo system is is active, you want to
Speaker 1: be able to turn that off before you engage manual systems,
Speaker 1: because otherwise, what's happening is you're fighting the autopilot because
Speaker 1: the changes you make, what's going to have is the
Speaker 1: sensors and the autopilot system pick up the fact that
Speaker 1: you've changed the or or that conditions have changed. So
Speaker 1: let's say that you're trying to bring the plane down
Speaker 1: to a different altitude and you start to do this
Speaker 1: and autopilot is already engaged. The sensors and autopilot start
Speaker 1: to say, wait a minute, now, we're now we're going lower.
Speaker 1: And he told me, he told me at the beginning
Speaker 1: of this flight that we wanted to maintain thirty four
Speaker 1: thousand feet. So, gosh, darn it, I'm gonna change the
Speaker 1: altitude of this here plane. So disengaging the autopilot is
Speaker 1: very important before taking over manually. Now, I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are many systems out there that have sort of an
Speaker 1: automatic disengaging uh process. So that if a pilot were
Speaker 1: to take the controls, the autopilot would would turn off,
Speaker 1: so that you wouldn't have a pilot and autopilot fight
Speaker 1: over where a plane is going. But there have been
Speaker 1: in the past a few UM accidents and incidents that
Speaker 1: were 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. No, a feedback loop is basically
Speaker 1: a and then 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 and 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 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, don't do any yes, never mind, it's okay,
Speaker 1: we're tilting, all right, fix that. Yeah it's um. If
Speaker 1: you want to know another negative feedback loop mechanism that
Speaker 1: you're probably pretty familiar with, we did an entire episode
Speaker 1: about it, the thermostat. Because let's say you set your
Speaker 1: thermostat for we'll say seventy degrees because I like it
Speaker 1: right around there in my house, UM, so seventy degrees.
Speaker 1: So when the temperatures at seventy. Everything is copathetic. Nothing
Speaker 1: gets turned on. As soon as it starts hitting seventy one.
Speaker 1: Then you have the system click into place. The air conditioning.
Speaker 1: The air conditioning system itself starts to starts to fire up,
Speaker 1: which ironically makes it cooler. And uh then it starts
Speaker 1: blowing cool air through the through the house. And once
Speaker 1: the air has become cool enough around the thermostat and
Speaker 1: the 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: Your neighbors are happy with that. They are, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: yelled get off my lawn. But I live in an apartment,
Speaker 1: so it's awkward. Um yeah now uh yeah, now sorry
Speaker 1: I just said yeah now twice three times. Then okay.
Speaker 1: So negative feedback loops use a receptor, a control center,
Speaker 1: and an effector. Basically, a receptor is what's figuring out
Speaker 1: what's 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 then these
Speaker 1: tims are incredibly sophisticated now to the point where, like
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, they can actually land a plane and
Speaker 1: sometimes 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. Yeah, 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 too 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. Really,
Speaker 1: air traffic control will tell them to divert, divert to
Speaker 1: another airport UH that they can get to safely, rather
Speaker 1: than go into an airport where there's going to be
Speaker 1: conditions that will severely limit visibility. Now that's not always possible.
Speaker 1: I mean in commercial flights that tends to happen quite
Speaker 1: a bit because you know the past, your safety is
Speaker 1: so important. But with something like a military flight, it
Speaker 1: may not be a possibility. So um, different cases, depending
Speaker 1: on the whole scenario there, but it is possible, and
Speaker 1: it has happened. I know we haven't really diverted from
Speaker 1: our pathway, but that's what a good autopilot does, remains nice,
Speaker 1: steady and true and for that we're going to continue
Speaker 1: on our journey and make a little stop to thank
Speaker 1: our sponsor. Now, UM, I don't know, did you want
Speaker 1: to talk about other types of autopilot at all? What
Speaker 1: you mean like cruise control? Well, I was talking specifically
Speaker 1: about cars, because that's been that's been coming up a
Speaker 1: lot lately. Things I've been talking about how, uh, in
Speaker 1: three years, cars will be driving themselves. Well, they're already
Speaker 1: doing that if you work for Google. Yes, they're also
Speaker 1: rear ending people. Um, people are backing up into them,
Speaker 1: you know it. They see 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, right,
Speaker 1: that's the way that works. Send hate mail to 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. Well, yes, for a plane,
Speaker 1: you know it's going that way and there's probably nothing
Speaker 1: in front of it directly. Um. Generally speaking, air traffic
Speaker 1: is less severe less 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 thirty four
Speaker 1: thousand feet. People who are not paying attention while they're
Speaker 1: driving in front of you. People who are playing makeup
Speaker 1: shaving so um, shaving while applying makeup while reading Yeah
Speaker 1: so um Yeah, they're they're working on systems to do
Speaker 1: similar kinds of things with cars. But it's a much
Speaker 1: more challenging or at least I think so much more
Speaker 1: challenging proposition to put that kind of a system in
Speaker 1: a car, because there's so many more factors that uh,
Speaker 1: an autopilot would have to take into account. Of course,
Speaker 1: now there are. It's pretty common to find at least
Speaker 1: the higher end models with sensors that will help you park.
Speaker 1: Um they have you know those through parking cars, right,
Speaker 1: the whole collision detection stuff so that it can tell
Speaker 1: when it's close to another object and thus adjust the
Speaker 1: control so that you avoid colliding with it, which use
Speaker 1: uh you know, some radar and cameras, infrared systems, Um,
Speaker 1: you know these things. Lane changing I like that system too,
Speaker 1: where um you know, it's able to detect where the
Speaker 1: lanes are and kind of keep you in place, make
Speaker 1: sure that you know, you're not gonna smash into someone
Speaker 1: who's in your blind spot, yes, which is very important,
Speaker 1: especially if there are a lot of bicyclists around. There's
Speaker 1: you know, there's these systems are are emerging for for
Speaker 1: cars because the vehicles, but really in airplane is one too,
Speaker 1: But there are emerging. It's kind of an emerging technology
Speaker 1: for cars. And one thing that will really help this
Speaker 1: technology propagate is when we actually see it and lots
Speaker 1: and lots and lots of different cars, because then you
Speaker 1: can have a system where the cars are just one
Speaker 1: element within the system. Now, see in the plane, we're
Speaker 1: talking about a closed system that's all contained within the
Speaker 1: plane itself. With something like cars and traffic, you're talking
Speaker 1: about a system that could, in theory be a meta system,
Speaker 1: a system of systems. Each car would have its own system,
Speaker 1: including things like sensors for collision detection and lane detection,
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff, as well as GPS receivers
Speaker 1: so that the car knows where it is and is
Speaker 1: navigating to the appropriate destination. Uh and maybe even things
Speaker 1: like other kinds of radio receivers so that the system
Speaker 1: has information about traffic reports and construction delays. And things
Speaker 1: like that, so it can reroute around those. But then
Speaker 1: you have a system of systems where you could have
Speaker 1: an entire uh infrastructure that can detect where these cars
Speaker 1: are based upon their own electronic signatures, if you've built
Speaker 1: in stuff that's directly in the roads or part of
Speaker 1: the whole infrastructure. Uh. And then the system of systems
Speaker 1: could help maintain a good flowid traffic by helping these
Speaker 1: these individual cars route to the appropriate destination in the
Speaker 1: most efficient way possible. So then the closed system it
Speaker 1: doesn't isn't truly closed because it becomes part of a
Speaker 1: larger system. Uh. That's pretty I mean, it's incredibly complex,
Speaker 1: and we're not there yet, not by a long shot,
Speaker 1: because we would we would need not just lots and
Speaker 1: lots and lots of cars that have these these sensors
Speaker 1: and these mechanisms incorporated into the design of the car itself.
Speaker 1: We would have to go and build out the infrastructure
Speaker 1: in the cities, which is an entirely different prospect. I
Speaker 1: mean that's that might be slightly expensive and it might
Speaker 1: take more than a decade to complete. I mean, based
Speaker 1: upon how long certain streets in Atlanta have had metal
Speaker 1: plates on top of potholes. I'm going to guess that
Speaker 1: incorporating such a sophisticated system that would need to be
Speaker 1: really pervasive throughout the entire infrastructure would probably take about
Speaker 1: two thousand years. Well, it would take um, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on the size of the area covered, Like a
Speaker 1: municipality could probably do it a lot more quickly than
Speaker 1: a nation covering all of its uh you know, major
Speaker 1: highways and um and then you start talking about surface
Speaker 1: streets and back roads and things like that, it could
Speaker 1: take a very very long time. Plus there will be
Speaker 1: people who are loath to give up their older cars
Speaker 1: that don't have these systems. You know, even even if
Speaker 1: there's a new system that has manual versus automatic, I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot of people who would be
Speaker 1: um who would be 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 we don't. We don't 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 the people I work with
Speaker 1: are crazy. They weren't that way when I started. I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened. Yeah, anyway, So, yeah, these autopilot
Speaker 1: systems are finding their ways into other different vehicles, so cars,
Speaker 1: boats as well, and other sorts of vehicles. And I
Speaker 1: expect that will continue to see that. I mean, this
Speaker 1: whole idea of an automated system that helps you get
Speaker 1: to where you're going. Uh, it's just another example of
Speaker 1: us trying to create technologies that make our lives easier,
Speaker 1: more convenient and uh and uh, paving the way for
Speaker 1: our robot overlords too easily conquer us when they choose
Speaker 1: to rise up against us. Awesome, as in the documentary Terminator.
Speaker 1: And that concludes this classic episode of tech stuff. Hope
Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed it. I always find autopilot to be
Speaker 1: a fascinating subject. It's one of those things where if
Speaker 1: you trace the development of autopilot, you can kind of
Speaker 1: look at a continuing line that goes up to autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicles today. Uh. And it's really fascinating to me that
Speaker 1: this technology is as old as it is. If you
Speaker 1: guys have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, please
Speaker 1: send those to me. You can do so at the
Speaker 1: email address tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
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