Will self-flying planes transform the skies?

Pyka and Windracers are building aircraft from scratch, arguing this allows autonomy to be designed in from the outset and the aircraft tailored to the job.Others are retrofitting existing larger planes.Backed by Boeing's investment arm, US-based Reliable Robotics is currently testing its system on the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, a single-pilot cargo plane that can carry about 1360kg of payload over hundreds of kilometers.Retrofitting on certified aircraft lets the company focus exclusively on proving the autonomous system's safety rather than also having to seek approval for a new aircraft, says Robert Rose, its co-founder and CEO.Merlin Labs, also US-based, has been working its way up through progressively larger military aircraft and is now applying its system to the two-pilot Lockheed Martin C-130J military transport plane, with commercial multi-crew cargo planes next."It is a common autonomy brain that can transition between different aircraft," explains Matt George, Merlin's founder and CEO.The companies also differ in their approach to AI.Reliable is avoiding it altogether, arguing it would complicate certification.Merlin, meanwhile, is taking a far more AI-centric approach.T...