Reliable Robotics this month announced it had performed the first flight of a remotely operated Cessna 208B without a pilot on board as the company works to certify its flight automation technology.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company aims to achieve certification in 2025, after which it will be able to operate uncrewed flights carrying commercial cargo using the Cessna 208B.
“Our opinion is that the right way to bring these sorts of systems to market is to follow the process,” co-founder and Chief Executive Robert Rose says in this week’s episode of the “Cargo Facts Connect” podcast.
“And the process is you need to get this through the supplemental type certification work and then you need to modify your airline certificate to be able to use that STC equipment, and that’s what we’re working on. That’s what we’re planning on doing.”
Simply talking about uncrewed operations and actually going ahead with certification are very different things from an organizational, procedural and safety analysis perspective, Rose said.
“It forces some very different conversations that I think are healthy and necessary,” he said. “It also helps us build data for the FAA that they need to better understand what’s involved in operating an aircraft and UAS. Flight tests like this, I think, take it out of the academic realm — and nothing against academics — but it takes it out of the realm of theory.”
The FAA has been good to work with, contrary to a common perception that it is slow and not receptive to new technology such as uncrewed aircraft, Rose said.
“If you talk with people in the FAA, it’s just not true,” he said. “That is just not reflective of the reality; the FAA wants to innovate and people choose that job. They choose that career path because they want to be at the tip of the spear on new technology.”
Tune in to this week’s podcast to learn more about Reliable Robotics’ testing and vision as Rose speaks with Cargo Facts Editor Jeff Lee.
A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain.
Jeff Lee
Hello and welcome to this episode of cargo facts connect, the podcast of cargo facts, the newsletter of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I’m Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts and it’s Friday, the fifteenth of December. Last week, autonomous aircraft developer Reliable Robotics announced that it had successfully carried out a remotely operated flight on a cargo Cessna 208B, without anybody actually in the aircraft. I talked to co-founder and chief executive Robert Rose that day but there was a lot that I didn’t include in the initial story, so I wanted to bring you this very interesting conversation with him.
Jeff Lee
Congrats again. I think it’s important to, clarify that even with your all your previous tests, I believe that those were also remotely piloted, they just had the pilot on board to monitor everything and to make sure that everything was working properly, right?
Robert Rose
That’s correct. Yeah, we we transitioned to having our flight test organization run everything remotely several years ago and we haven’t really looked back. We we did remote piloting tests back in 2019 and then we operated in a bit of a hybrid mode where we would switch back and forth between doing things on board and off board and then and then we just we built up the capability to be able to run everything remotely.
Jeff Lee
Right, right. And then this, but this was kind of the the next step where you remove the pilot from the from on both the aircraft entirely.
Robert Rose
Yeah, and you know, from a purely technical perspective that really not a lot changes. What’s really different is the level of analysis and preparation that went into this. It’s one thing to talk about, ohh, we could take the pilot out. It’s a whole other thing entirely to actually do it, and when you start working through the detailed safety analysis of everything you would do and various contingencies, it’s quite involved. And the caravan is a bit more complicated to operate than the Cessna 172 that we did back in 2019, and so it was a substantially greater amount of work.
Jeff Lee
So, in terms of this flight, what did the pilot supervising everything, what did they actually have to to do? Or did they have not have to do anything at all?
Robert Rose
Well, let me let me break it up into two parts and talk about the capability that the remote pilot has and then we can talk about what they actually did the day of the mission. So we’ve devised a system that allows the remote pilot to command the aircraft. You’re basically presented with a menu of options based on where the aircraft is and what phase of flight. There may be reasons to alter the flight paths, say to do a maneuver the aircraft differently to accommodate another aircraft that might be flying in your vicinity, things of that nature, or you may wanna go loiter over a point until something is resolved on the ground and then come back in and reenter the pattern. So we have this this menu of options and everything that the pilot remote pilot can do is cross checked and validated by our system to ensure it’s not gonna put the aircraft in any kind of precarious situation. You can’t command the aircraft to fly too low to the ground, or you can’t command it to fly too fast or too slow, etcetera. So all of that’s checked. There’s a number of alerts or monitors that the aircraft has on board that monitors its system performance, and if any of those monitors activate then the remote pilot can see that the aircraft has an issue that should be alerted and the pilot might take that information to decide to land immediately or perhaps go divert to another point and loiter for a while. So that’s the basic capability. Now during this flight, none of that happened. So, the on board system didn’t detect any issues, so nothing was alerted to the pilot. We didn’t have any other traffic in the pattern, so we didn’t need to do any kind of maneuvering. So basically the remote pilot pressed the GO button and then mine went and did its thing. And the remote pilot still has a responsibility as well to communicate with surrounding air traffic. And so we also have the ability through our Control Center to stream audio to the aircraft and then it’s broadcast out the aircraft, so there’s a push to talk interface in the Control Center. And when you’re holding that button down, you are on air and you’re speaking out through the aircraft. And so you see in one of the videos the remote pilots doing all the same radio calls, she would be doing if she was in the plane. So you announce that you’re taking the runway and or you’re using the runway and you’re going to stay in left closed traffic and you announce your crosswind downwind base, et cetera, all the same things you would do if you were out there in the plane.
Jeff Lee
Cool, yeah. You also mentioned testing some of the hardware. Does that include and did this flight also test the detect and avoid system with the air to air radar? Your colleague Miles Goeller actually told us more about this in San Diego at our conference in October.
Robert Rose
Not yet. That’s on the docket. So that’s one of the next big steps for us, but you know, before you can fly beyond visual line of sight, you first need to be able to fly visual line of sight so this was a big step one and yeah, it’s gonna be some time though before our detect and avoid system is fully ready for a test like this, but, but that’s what we’re driving towards next.
Jeff Lee
And did this flight contain any cargo or anything like that?
Robert Rose
It contained some memorabilia I wouldn’t say that’s really newsworthy. This was not a revenue generating flight so it didn’t have any customer cargo or anything like that.
Jeff Lee
Right. When might you be looking to to start testing with actual cargo on board, but without a pilot on board?
Robert Rose
As soon as it’s certified. Our opinion is that the right way to bring these sorts of systems to market is to follow the process and the process is you need to get this through the supplemental type certification work and then you need to modify your airline certificate to be able to use that STC equipment and that’s what we’re working on. That’s what we’re planning on doing.
Jeff Lee
So this is this still around the 2025 time frame.
Robert Rose
Yes. It’s still, it’s going to be some time before we complete the certification process and then you have to modify the airline certificate.
Jeff Lee
Right.
Robert Rose
So it’ll be some time.
Jeff Lee
Starting with your own reliable airlines certificate, right?
Robert Rose
That’s correct. Yeah, we started that airline to be the incubator, if you will, for for this technology. And our plan is to test things out there first and then once we come up with a strategy for how to modify certificates, then we intend to bring others into the fold and license it to them so that they can benefit from the technology as well.
Jeff Lee
So now that you’ve done this flight, when is the next one?
Robert Rose
I can’t talk about that quite yet. I mean, I did mention that there’s going to be work in the near future and beyond visual line of sight we have a pretty packed schedule of things that we need to test on the aircraft getting to be prepared for that. And but I’m not gonna, I can’t reveal our flight test schedule, but you can watch us on ADSB, good for you.
Jeff Lee
So, I mean, kind of on a related note, so you’ll it’s not like you’re now going to switch to doing all your testing without anybody on board, right? So you’ll also continue tests with the supervising pilot onboard.
Robert Rose
Oh definitely yeah I think it’s gonna be a hybrid going forward.
Jeff Lee
OK.
Robert Rose
I mean, there are times when it’s, I think valuable to test with the pilot on board and and times when it’s not. And as I mentioned earlier, it’s one thing to just talk about UAS operation and it’s it’s very, very different organizationally, procedurally safety analysis wise to to actually go do it. And it it forces some very different conversations that I think are healthy and necessary. It also helps us build data for the FAA that they need to better understand what’s involved in operating an aircraft UAS and it flight tests like this I think take it out of the academic realm and put it into nothing against academics, but it it takes it out of the the realm of theory, let me say, and puts it into practical use. And that’s what needs to happen if we want to make this sort of technology commonplace, then we need to start practicing it.
Jeff Lee
Right. And you know, there are a couple of at least a couple of other companies trying to do similar things with the same aircraft type, I might add.
Robert Rose
Yeah.
Jeff Lee
So are you gonna continue testing with just this one aircraft?
Robert Rose
We have. The way I answer this is there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to complete the certification process for full automation of an aircraft and remote operation of an aircraft. And while a lot of this work is aircraft agnostic, the Cessna caravan is our chosen platform. And so there’s a lot of business, financial, technical reasons why it makes sense for us to stay focused on this platform and there are other platforms that we are looking at. But I think what you’re gonna see from reliable in the near future is a a heavy emphasis on the caravan.
Jeff Lee
Right. Yeah. No, that’s I guess I meant more specifically just this one MSN that you were doing the testing with.
Robert Rose
Oh, oh, oh. Oh yeah. Keep keep watching our ADSB tracks and look for caravans in in the vicinity and that’s all I’m saying.
Jeff Lee
Yeah. OK. And do you have a rough ballpark figure for like the number of uncrewed flight hours that you need to complete for the certification?
Robert Rose
Oh, it’s going to be easily, it’s going to be a big number. And yeah, and then the important thing though that I’d stress is, while there are going to be a lot of hours and actually it’s not so much hours, it’s more take off and landing demonstrations is really what’s critical here. We need to be able to show that the system works through all phases of operation and we need to hit test points across the operating envelope. So we’re gonna need to demonstrate extreme crosswind performance, runway icing, slick runway performance, things of that nature. It’s so the hours are almost a consequence of the number of test points, if that makes sense.
Jeff Lee
Right, yeah.
Robert Rose
The thing though that I would I would really, really stress is all of this needs to be anchored in simulation and I wish we I wish we had a cool video or some kind of hip press release we could do on our SIM because I think that’s also an incredible component that we’ve built here and a key enabling technology because you don’t just certify this type of system by saying, oh, we’ve flown it for a certain number of hours or oh, we’ve demonstrated this cross wind performance. Yes, you have to do that, but you also have to show that through very detailed analysis and simulation, the aircraft can do everything we can possibly conceive it may encounter. And this is the way large jet autoland systems are certified. Today, there’s processes and procedures that are used for certified fully automated auto land with CAT3 CIS. We’re leveraging a lot of the standards and we’re extending them so that they cover not just landing, but they cover all phases of flight, including takeoff and taxiing.
Jeff Lee
In terms of the the FAA, from your perspective, how have they, how easy or not easy have they been to to work with in setting up the these tests?
Robert Rose
Yeah, I react to this one cause I mean this is why we started this company because I had many conversations with the FAA folks in the FAA 6-7 years ago about this topic and there was this perception out in the public sphere that the FAA is slow. They don’t innovate, they’re not receptive of these types of things. And they’re if you talk with people in the FAA, it’s just not true that is just not reflective of the reality the FAA wants to innovate and people choose that job. They choose that career path because they wanna be at the tip of the spear on new technology. That’s why you go work for the FAA, like cause you get to see all the new stuff. But the problem though, I think people, people misunderstand is that they think that the FAA or the government is supposed to tell them how to do certain things, and it just doesn’t work that way, nor do we want it to work that way in the United States. We don’t want the FAA dictating to us how things should be certified and so the burden is actually on industry to make a safety case and to show the FAA this is how we recommend this type of technology be integrated into aircraft. And the reason we started this company is because nobody had yet done that and nobody had done it because it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of detailed, very in the weeds, detailed analysis and so we decided we’re gonna do this and we’ve been working through all of that very detailed analysis and it’s taken a long time. But you know, the FAA has been has been great partners. I mean it’s not all rosy, but I mean, for the most part like the FAA has been pretty darn good to work with. There’s people there that really care about this. They love new technology. They wanna see this come out in reality are in the real world. It’s of course it’s gotta be done in a safe way. And so we don’t agree with the FAA on how to ensure safety on all aspects of our system. But I would say we agree on 99% of the important things. And they’re they’ve been areas where, you know, they’ve challenged us on certain assumptions that we’ve made. And it’s I think that’s made for a better system and we’ve also challenged them on things. There’s times when they thought that we didn’t need to be doing so much, and we argued. Actually, we did think it’s important that we do this and so it’s a learning process umm. Anyway, you got me going because this is like a pinching a nerve kind of thing for me. I think the FAA has an unfair reputation in here and so every opportunity again I try to correct that. Anyway, did I question your question?
Jeff Lee
Yes, yes. No, it’s good that you clarified that.. No it’s good as someone you know who is working probably with the FAA very closely every day. It’s important to hear what it’s like. So no, I think we’re excited to see this and we look forward to continuing to see the progress that you’ll make. But in the meantime, good luck with everything that you’ve got ahead because you know now that you’ve done this, there’s I think you said there’s this is in a way, you know, the next phase of a lot of additional work so, thank you, Robert, for your time.
Robert Rose
I appreciate the opportunity. Happy to chat.
Jeff Lee
Thanks again and Congrats.
Robert Rose
Thank you.
Jeff Lee
That was Robert Rose, co-founder and chief executive of Reliable Robotics. And that’s all the time we have today. This was the final episode of the year, so happy holidays, wherever you may be, and we’ll be back in 2024. For more coverage on the freighter aircraft market, visit cargo facts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in, and join us again next time.
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