When Taxi Instructions Move From the Tower's Voice to the Cockpit Screen

Large airports are crowded places: aircraft, ground crews and service vehicles share the same taxiways. NASA's Ames Research Center recently worked with Boeing on three kinds of field tests there — digital taxi information, safe taxiway and safe runways — aimed at runway environments at airports. The digital taxi tests changed who delivers the route and how it arrives. Instead of hearing taxiway guidance verbally from an air traffic controller, pilots received it directly on cockpit displays or tablets. Aircraft then followed those digital routes autonomously while researchers monitored a suite of sensors designed to identify vehicles or other aircraft impeding the taxi path and runway. The route itself is still assigned; what moves is the channel. Voice instructions depend on a pilot hearing, understanding and acting on them, while a digital route can be handed to the aircraft as data — which is exactly why the tests also needed sensors watching for whatever wanders into the way.