PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - AF447
Thread: AF447
View Single Post
Old 9th August 2009 | 14:40
  #4165 (permalink)  
PJ2
20 Anniversary
 
Joined: Mar 2003
: ATPL
Posts: 2,558
Likes: 155
From: BC
lomapaseo;
An example of situational awareness would be the FADEC systems on engines.
I think I understand what you mean and I think we understand that there may be as much a philosophical meaning as a semantic one here. No software is "aware". My very simple understanding of software is, while software can mimic learning, software doesn't "learn" in the meaning of the term we usually understand. While I am aware that those that work in AI will likely take issue with such views, the kind of sofware that guides an airliner is by comparison, pretty basic, an algorithm, without the ability to anticipate or recall in a human way. cessnapuppy touches on this in an interesting way. The processors and memory capacity are similarly pretty basic as are the displays. The trade is perhaps in robustness.

For a number of reasons, I am not sure that "fuzzy logic" solutions are suitable to airline work. I may be missing something but I don't think the problems of flight are that complex that such a sophisticated approach is necessary. The problems driving change and "improvement", (sometimes known as "progress"...), are all about cost, not physics.
PJ2 is offline