What makes car automation so difficult is the fact that you have to account for human drivers and pedestrians. Flight automation might actually be an easier problem if all the vehicles are autonomous from the start and communicate with each other. You’re also not flying bumper to bumper the way you drive on a road, so you have a much wider margin for collision avoidance.
It is at least a different problem, but adding in the element that any failure is a fatal one it just isn’t enough that there are less obstacles in the way.
Sure it’s a different problem, but chances of fatal accidents in cars are already significantly higher than in commercial air travel now. And same argument applies to planes.
I would never sit in something like this. The idea of an autonomous airborne vehicle seems terrifying to me.
Agreed. I already don’t trust car automation. No way I’m going to add a 3rd dimension to the list of possible failures.
What makes car automation so difficult is the fact that you have to account for human drivers and pedestrians. Flight automation might actually be an easier problem if all the vehicles are autonomous from the start and communicate with each other. You’re also not flying bumper to bumper the way you drive on a road, so you have a much wider margin for collision avoidance.
It is at least a different problem, but adding in the element that any failure is a fatal one it just isn’t enough that there are less obstacles in the way.
Sure it’s a different problem, but chances of fatal accidents in cars are already significantly higher than in commercial air travel now. And same argument applies to planes.