FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for Reliable Robotics

Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by marcosdumay on Monday August 31, 2020 @01:31PM (#24333806)

The "cost of the pilot" / "cost of the operation" metric gives us this order: urban transportation, inter-city ground transportation, air transportation, water transportation.

The difficulty of automating it metric gives us this order: air transportation, water transportation, inter-city ground transportation, urban transportation.

So I'm personally expecting a mix: air transportation, inter-city ground transportation, water transportation, urban transportation.

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Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by tintor on Monday August 31, 2020 @01:47PM (#24333996)

Why do you believe that water transportation would be harder to automate than air transportation?

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Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by marcosdumay on Monday August 31, 2020 @02:56PM (#24334753)

There is more "noise" to deal with on the water than on the air. For a start, there is the entire ocean floor, that is relevant on many places where ships usually go into, and isn't as simple to map as a runway.

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Re:FedEx feeder plane takes flight without pilot in test for... by tintor on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @07:31PM (#24348336)

That problem can be avoided in the beginning. Ships could pilot themselves in deep waters between ports and leave docking / undocking to local human port pilots.

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