Birds have been doing this for millions of years. They sense turbulence before it happens and change their flight to avoid it. Today, thanks to a team of researchers from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and about Nvidiaplanes will also be able to develop this capacity. A new artificial intelligence called FALCON promises to make flying safer than ever, by predicting and managing turbulence, just like our feathered friends do.
The challenge of air turbulence
I who, until last year, tightened the armrests of the seat with each slight shake, I can assure you that the turbulence It’s one of the most stressful aspects of flying. Fortunately, a course on how airplanes work helped me overcome this fear: but we may soon have even more practical help.
The FALCON (Fourier Adaptive Learning and CONTrol) system represents a breakthrough in turbulence management. Using the reinforcement learningan advanced form of artificial intelligence, learns to predict how turbulent winds will change over time.
The need for this technology is more urgent than ever. As pointed out by Professor Mory Gharibproject manager, climate change the frequency of extreme weather events is increasing which cause turbulence.
Disasters like the deadly Singapore Airlines flight last Mayin which more than 100 passengers were injured after the plane encountered severe turbulence, could be avoided with such a system.
The team’s experimental setup in the John W. Lucas Wind Tunnel at Caltech. A large black cylinder with a plate attached to the front creates erratic turbulence under the tunnel’s fast winds. The airfoil wing system with eight pressure sensors and a Pitot tube is mounted on a load cell to measure the lift experienced by the system. Images: Caltech
How FALCON works
Unlike previous systems, FALCON he does not just react to turbulence: he tries to understand and predict them. Uses mathematical methods based on sine waves (Fourier methods) to represent wind conditions.
Extreme turbulence is manifested by a notable change in the frequency of these waves
I like to think of FALCON as an expert musician who knows how to read the “score” of the wind. Just as a musician can anticipate the next notes by looking at the score, FALCON can predict the arrival of turbulence by analyzing the wind pattern.
Wind tunnel tests
To test FALCON, researchers created an extremely harsh environment in the John W. Lucas Wind Tunnel from Caltech. They used a wing system fully equipped with pressure sensors and adaptive control surfaces.
The installation included a large cylinder with a moving prop that, when struck by wind, created random and significant fluctuations. After only nine minutes of learning (the time of a short domestic flight) the FALCON-assisted system managed to stabilize in this extreme environment.
The future of turbulence-free flight
Anima AnandkumarCaltech professor and co-author of the study (what a fantastic name) explains that the system improves with each new observation. But the researchers’ vision goes further: they imagine a future in which planes will be able to share information on atmospheric conditions with each other in real time.
As an anxious ex-airman, I find this prospect incredibly reassuring. A network of aircraft working together to make every flight safer seems to me to be the ideal way to combine technology and safety.
The challenge now is to make the system faster and faster to adapt. With the increase in extreme weather events, this technology could become not just a convenience, but a necessity for aviation safety. And who knows, maybe one day we will look at turbulence with the same nonchalance with which a pigeon faces a gust of wind.
