By Grady Andersen, Staff Writer 

On Sept. 21, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced plans to roll out a new AI-powered air traffic control (ATC) system nationwide. 

The new system called the Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories (SMART) has already been launched in three airports in the Washington D.C. area, those being Washington-Dulles, Ronald Reagan International and Baltimore-Washington International. The program is part of a larger effort by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to modernize the aging system, costing $875 million of an allotted $12.5 billion budget.  

“AI handles all this arithmetic of conflict prediction, sequencing, weather rerouting, controllers keep judgment and communication. So it acts in a supporting role. It can definitely complement and by being able to provide that very important information on time, we believe it would contribute to enhanced safety and reduction of the workload,” University of Cincinnati professor Dr. Kelly Cohen said. Dr. Cohen is the Brian H. Rowe Endowed Chair in Aerospace Engineering and Director of the AI Bio Lab at UC Digital Futures.

This AI is not built to completely replace air-traffic controllers, but instead will act in a supporting role to supplement a national shortage, both as extra manpower and training. 

“A new controller takes about three to five years to certify. So the shortage is real … So, where can AI help? It can help you train faster, personalize training, figure out what your shortcomings are and then reinforce that and then shorten the process to certify a controller. The other thing, it can cut down on the workload, and that also would allow you as a force multiplier,” Cohen said. 

Prior to a meeting between FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford and major airline CEOs, the companies were hesitant to accept this new program. However, that has seemingly changed.  

“We applaud Secretary Duffy and Administrator Bedford for their efforts to leverage technology to make the airspace more efficient and safer,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said. “We are working closely with the FAA on their ATC modernization efforts and programs like SMART — which when done thoughtfully and methodically will offer enhanced benefit to the traveling public.” 

Almost to demonstrate the issues currently facing the national airspace, on the same day SMART was announced, New York metro, Boston and Philadelphia International airports were shut down due to a construction worker cutting over 400 cables vital to airspace monitoring, resulting in ground stops across the eastern seaboard in mid-September. 

One of the big concerns regarding using AI to control airspace was hallucinations, but according to Cohen, that is not much of a concern. AI hallucinations happen when it produces confident, fluent answers that are factually wrong, fabricated, or unsupported by its training data. 

“In our system, once we certify it, the chances of getting a catastrophic failure is 10 raised to the power of minus nine [one billionth]. Whereas a large language model hallucinates at the rate of 10 raised [to the power of] minus one to 10 raised to minus two. Okay, between 10% to 1& to 2%. And so when you compare that, they are seven, eight orders of magnitude off. And that is the safety you want,” Cohen said. 

While there are a lot of benefits to this support, Cohen does warn that there is a need for some hesitancy to not jump the gun nationwide.  

“So, the goal is a trustworthy AI that earns its place beside the controller and not one that would replace a controller and not even when you’re talking about airports which are out there that don’t see too many flights,” Cohen said, “Why? I would not trust them because they’re not certified yet. So unless I have a certifiable AI, me as an aerospace engineer would advocate that we do not play with the lives of people.” 

Ultimately, Cohen believes the idea of AI helping alleviate the stress of controllers is both good for the controller themselves and the customer.  

“For over half a century, we’ve been flying with these autopilots … AI in air traffic control systems is the same philosophy, automation, handling routine work under human supervision. It is the point, the human supervision.”