ALIAS Robot Autonomously Flies and Lands Boeing 737 Simulator

DARPA’s (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) ALIAS (Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System) program has demonstrated automated flight capabilities with various successful flight scenarios in a Boeing 737-800NG simulator at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

ALIAS utilized the existing 737 auto-landing system to autonomously land the aircraft safely, demonstrating its function as a second pilot in a two-crew aircraft, particularly in the event of pilot incapacitation.

Developed by Aurora Flight Sciences, the ALIAS solution includes the use of in-cockpit machine vision, robotic components to actuate the
flight controls, and an advanced tablet-based user interface, speech recognition and synthesis.