At the National Business Aircraft Association convention and trade show last fall, Universal Avionics was showing its latest Aperture AI-driven traffic awareness technology that promises to tame surface incursions. It uses multiple sensors including aircraft-mounted and ground surface cameras, ADS-B transceivers, ATC and aircraft audio chatter and other sensors to provide comprehensive imagery with visual instructions displayed directly to cockpit and head-up displays.
The company appears to be on the cutting edge of avionics AI, recently developing an automatic speech recognition solution that uses an iPad or the Aperture avionics suite to morph ATC instructions into visual guidance displayed in the cockpit through head-wearables and flight displays. On the HUD image above, courtesy of Universal Avionics, note that AI-captured ATC instructions are presented in the upper right, while ADS-B is tagging the traffic.
There’s more than AI-based surface awareness. Universal’s software-based flight management system, the iFMS, also incorporates AI algorithms to perform otherwise high workload tasks automatically, such as FMS reprogramming, calculating efficient flight paths and analyzing various data inputs like weather, ATC routing and aircraft performance data. The company said it’s aligned with the FAA’s roadmap for AI safety assurance.
The Aperture’s augmented reality experience, combined with object and speech recognition, enables new features including visual positioning, obstacle detection, taxi guidance and traffic awareness. Data is captured from sensors such as Universal’s EVS-5000 (ClearVision) multi-spectral camera mounted on the aircraft’s nose for feeding into HUDs and HWDs, as well as external cameras that are already installed on many turbine aircraft.
For more on the Universal Avionics evolving Aperture tech, visit www.universalavionics.com.
