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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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A NASA project called
Resilient Autonomy

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has developed autonomous
software to help

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prevent airplane crashes.

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This software is called the
Expandable Variable Autonomy

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Architecture or EVAA, which
stems from the automatic ground

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collision avoidance
system or Auto GCAS.

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This technology started
off 35 years ago

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on the F-16 only a few hundred
feet away from us right now.

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That was the first aircraft
on a high performance

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aircraft with a digital
flight control system.

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And we started to bring a
lot of automation onto it.

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We quickly found that automated
safety was a critical component

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just even to flight tested.

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Over the next 25 years, we work
towards our automatic ground

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collision avoidance
system and eventually got

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it field in the F-16 fleet.

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Taking a roll inverted.

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The Auto GCAS
system takes control

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of an aircraft from the pilot
at the last possible moment

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to avoid an imminent
ground collision.

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That's all automatic.

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Today it's saved up to 11
lives out there in the fleet.

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But that technology was
focused on supporting fighters.

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And it didn't scale
well to other platforms.

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The team changed
the algorithms used

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in the F-16 version
of Auto GCAS to make

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them suitable for non-fighter
aircraft like Cessnas

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or remotely piloted aircraft.

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We've created a
software architecture

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that can be expanded to support
any mission or platform.

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[SIDE CONVERSATION]

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We support variable
autonomy in the fact

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that it can be a
safety augmentation

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and warn a pilot to all the way
to a fully unpiloted aircraft

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that doesn't even have
a pilot in the loop.

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The intent is to create a
software architecture that

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can easily be adapted to any
form of mission or platform

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or autonomy level you want.

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See if it'll pick
right or left here.

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This version includes functions
to prevent smaller airplanes

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from diving into a canyon,
into the side of a mountain,

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or into the ground in the event
of an emergency by avoiding

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obstacles and guiding the
plane to a safe landing area.

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It draws upon multiple
systems, multiple sensors.

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And it leverages
hopping from one system

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to the next prioritizing
different safety

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elements or the mission.

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So we're emphasizing that timing
element of going from one thing

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on to the next in
rapid succession.

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Now we will be in
altitude hold mode.

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Slightly different than
we were before that

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is going to fly us through that
notch over this very complex

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wind turbine farm.

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All right, now we just picked
up a detection of a king air

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at our 6 o'clock high.

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An element called
the moral compass

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helps the software
decide which moves

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to make by switching control to
the highest priority task based

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on weighing the odds of safety.

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The moral compass is at the
heart of this rapid switching.

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OK, you can see it's
triggered into the yellow mode

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there well clear
so it's in a dive.

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You can see we've got basically
a fence or a wall of these wind

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turbines in front of us.

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And we're just cresting over
the top of a line of them

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behind us.

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But we're still in
well clear mode,

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it doesn't yet care
about the wind turbines.

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So we're descending
out of the way

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of that traffic that's almost
directly overhead us now

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on the approach.

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We're getting closer
to those wind turbines.

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OK, now GCAS is
taking over climbing

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right turn and aggressive
turn to the right.

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Now it detects it's fairly
close to the aircraft

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so it is doing an
aggressive left ACAS

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turn climbing away right on
the edge of these wind turbine

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obstacles.

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And now it's back
into well clear.

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We're trying to deconflict
the hazards temporally.

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Separate them in time
and then quickly resolve

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each individual
one so that now we

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can switch from one to the
next, to the next, to the next.

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So we bring this
metadata processed,

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metadata onto the
aircraft, whether it's

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terrain or obstacles
or risk of landing.

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And that gives our
algorithms a strategic vision

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of how it needs
to execute things.

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So we can then trade
these and decide this

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is the most important thing.

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To increase aviation safety and
decrease the number of crashes,

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the DOD, the FAA
and other groups

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such as the Alaska
Bush Pilot community

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are looking into how
the software could

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be integrated into a variety
of aircraft in the future.

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General aviation, especially
the Bush Pilot community

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has a very challenging task
to go out there and fly

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in a very rough environment.

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And they see higher loss rates.

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This technology
could prevent that.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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The EVAA software
is being managed

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under the NASA Armstrong Flight
Research Center Technology

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Transfer Office.

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Future availability and
capability enhancement

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will be managed by an extended
potential collaboration

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of NASA, the DOD, and the FAA.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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Other NASA projects
such as advanced air

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mobility are looking at
potential use cases of EVAA,

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as they investigate how
to help the FAA integrate