Meet 'PIBOT,' the robot who can fly planes

STORY: This is ‘PIBOT,’ the AI robot who can fly planes

L: Seosan, South Korea

The team behind it says it's

the world's first humanoid pilot

(David Hyunchul Shim, Professor, KAIST)

“Our pilot robot PIBOT can manage everything in the airplane including turning on and off the engines and fly the airplane, take off crews and land everything.”

PIBOT was tested in a flight simulator

and performed the full process

from taking off to landing

It has cameras to identify and flip switches,

while using AI to understand flight manuals

“Human pilot is great and understanding the context and handle the complex situation, but they often failed to remember a very detail of those flight manual especially when they are in trouble. So, our PIBOT is capable of understanding and remembering everything literally everything in the manual, and then they can execute without any kind of emotion, or you know panic, especially during the emergency situation. And they can handle the situation according to the manual, which they can retrieve in microseconds.”

The team is now working towards

testing PIBOT in a real light aircraft