It's designed to work at Mach 0.85, and was meant to increase the lifespan of the airframe during low-altitude penetration flights where lots of turbulence could be expected.
It seems like a system like this would need to respond very quickly to changes in the air mass, and the weight and slow response of an airliner might make this system less feasible unless you could somehow measure airflow a reasonable distance in front of the plane.
That's exactly, what i imagined, at least.
This article is about a PoC where they put sensors extended out of the airframe of a small slow moving aircraft and demonstrated a 60% prediction accuracy for a 10% fuel savings. It’s unlikely this approach would scale up to an airliner. The sensor problem might be but I have big questions about the adjustments an airliner moving at 600-900 mph can make to successfully counteract the prediction.
This could be a few extra control surfaces, like a canard or actuated slat, or it could be through something like Active Flow Control -- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-next-darpa-x-... -- where puffs of bleed air or electrostatics adjusts airflow rapidly.
I think systems-- like the B-1 Lancer highlighted by a sibling comment-- show it's not completely impractical for larger aircraft.
Given how slow and cautious the industry is (and for good reason), even if someone has been working on this for a decade already, I don't expect to see anything like that before 2030.
Obviously this impacts engine efficiency, so not 100% sure how great it would be for cruise, but doesn't seem entirely impractical?
Secondly, the turbulence prediction is extremely hard for an airliner because it’s traveling so fast - you’d need sensors extended comically far forward and at that point you’ve got real risk of them breaking off mid flight meaning you would have to add significant amounts of weight to strengthen them (assuming you could). You’ve also got the problem that you need to retract this stuff on landing probably which adds more weight and complexity. Adding even more problems, generating sudden thrusts to counteract turbulence for a commercial airliner seems really difficult since that’s not how the engines work (eg you probably can’t generate a countervailing force quickly enough).
This is a neat concept but keep in mind this is a PoC on a very lightweight craft going relatively slow. It’s not clear how big/fast an aircraft it can scale up to. An easier turbulence reduction would be to mount the passenger area in something that could actively mechanically stabilize like optical image sensors. If you could decouple things so that the airframe could be repaired/replaced cheaply independent you everything else in the aircraft, that would be much more cost effective. However I suspect the mechanical stabilization itself would add a lot of weight/also need replacement and you wouldn’t see fuel savings I think, just a more comfortable ride.