Enabling autonomous flight capabilities onboard commercial aircraft to improve safety

This paper presents the development and implementation of a novel Flight Management System (FMS) to ensure onboard passenger safety of commercial aircraft in the event of an emergency scenario where the pilot must relinquish control of the aircraft (e.g. hijacking or loss of cabin pressure). In such situations, the flight management system autonomously pilots the aircraft to a predefined destination whilst taking into account potential hazards such as terrain (in low altitude scenarios), aircraft dynamic constraints, and flight objectives with real-time constraints present. Furthermore, the FMS must ensure that the Human Decision Maker (HDM) (e.g. Air Traffic Control or ATC) has sufficient time to intervene if they do not agree with automated onboard decisions. The proposed FMS shows that the inclusion of intelligent planning capabilities onboard commercial aircraft can assist in improving safety for the aircraft and onboard passengers in the event of emergencies by allowing the aircraft to continue operating autonomously in a management by exception paradigm. This approach has been demonstrated in this paper through simulation using a commercial aircraft model operating in low altitude partially known environments.