In the jet propulsion laboratory of NASA recently developed a new version of autopilot for multicopters on the basis of artificial intelligence. To check and chose the most logical and extreme option – competition with experienced living pilot. They became Ken Loo, who is piloting flying drones professionally.
Man against three AI – “Batman”, “Joker” and “Nightwing.” All the same, can accelerate to 130 km/h, you are all familiar with the track and each driver had to control the drone, guided by the video signal from the camera on Board. In these equal conditions Ken Loo won, but it was “Pyrrhic”, he recognizes the pilot.
If Ken led drone aggressive, alternating acceleration with braking, cutting corners and going round in an average of 11.1 seconds, all the AI chose the safest algorithm of the flight. And flew round in 13.9 seconds, virtually identical trajectories. Because of this, they lost the race, but had won the match: at the end of the experiment, AI is recognized as a more effective pilot than the man.
It all comes down to fatigue – Ken Loo honestly admits that on the 10th lap of the race he was already exhausted. AI, and after the 100 round can work with the same effectiveness. And when you consider that just to chase them on the basic work will not have progress in the development of real autopilot there is. NASA upon them enormous hope these machines will be able to work in places where not reach the GPS signal, and where the robot needs to make decisions based only on their observations.
Source — NASA