Real AI with ATC

[Deleted 250]

MS wants to install real AI. (I love being stuck in traffic before takeoff! For real!)

But can real AI interact with ATC? Just for safety, I do not want to be 500 feet behind a 747 in the approach. ATC must be able to control the AI.

I could well imagine that only the real flight plan is deposited. The ATC controls the rest.
With correct intervals and holdings.

(This thread serves only as a food for thought for MS / Asobo, I hope they have already thought about that)

[Deleted 250]

19 hours ago, Beru said:

I wrote this long time ago somewhere else, so I paste it again here:

 

ATC can go from elementary feature to very complex, so for starters:

1) Support for IFR & VFR: Fill up a flight plan route. Enter callsign, departure, and destination. ATC will then approve the route, set the departure runway, and the right SID for that route. Ideally, the flight plan can be created inside the sim or be imported from Simbrief. During the flight, ATC will check the plane position to calculate when start descending and what STAR and runway use. 

2) Voices: From a library of TTS voices, the player should select the “user voice”. Then the rest of the voices will be assigned to ATC controllers. (at least 3 or 4 voices should be enough for ATC to have variations.) The more, the merrier, obviously.

3) ATC Basic Procedures: Let’s go for the simple stuff first: You need to request clearance delivery, engines start and pushback, taxi, take off, change altitude, and start descending. The player should be able to select a different runway either for takeoff or landing, and ATC should resync to allow it (if it’s possible).

4) Radio-Communications: All this should be done through an options menu, and we should have the option to auto-tune the right frequency and contact the right ATC. (pretty much like FSX does it now). And ATC should always lead us to the next controller: “contact tower for takeoff”. Center Control areas should also be supported.

5) Contextual: ATC should be able to understand in what phase of the flight we are, and be ready to give instructions for it. For instance, if we are in-ground frequency, heading towards the takeoff runway, once we are getting close, we should be instructed to contact the tower. If the weather at cruise altitude is bad, the ATC could suggest us to use another altitude.

6) Vectoring: The ATC could vectoring us towards our destination when we are close to the airport, but must keep in mind the altitude restrictions of the area we are flying over. Flying at night with an ATC that doesn’t have in mind mountains can be really dangerous.

Advanced Features: Things that we should have once the basic stuff is working:

1) AI Control: ATC can handle the player flight plan and other AI planes as well, that have their own flight plans. ATC should order stop to aircraft that are too close to each other, hold planes when another one is getting ready to land, etc. Same thing when we are arriving at the destination. Handling traffic so we are positioned in a queue of planes for landing and assigned to the right parking position.

2) AI Voices: We need a more extensive range of TTS voices here, so we can listen ATC talking to us and to other AI planes as we see them acting in the sim. 

3) Voice Recognition: This can be cool, but no English speakers users can have difficult times with this system, so definitely not a priority.

4) Multiplayer support: This is the holy grail. ATC can control multiplayer users. ATC approves flight plans and fits the users in a spot for takeoff/landing, calculating the number of flights in that airport and that moment. It really works like an automatized ATC. I can talk with ATC controllers using the voice recognition system -or some menu option-, so other real users can hear me too. If a user ignores ATC instructions , it will be banned temporarily or receive strike warnings.

 

[Noooch 1,084]

Someone talked about a "safety bubble" within AI aircrafts vanish to give you way. The bubble dimensions would vary with speed.

I think it's an interesting idea, but there must be a better one.

Edited October 12, 2019 by Noooch

[Deleted 250]

1 hour ago, Noooch said:

Someone talked about a "safety bubble" within AI aircrafts vanish to give you way. The bubble dimensions would vary with speed.

I think it's an interesting idea, but there must be a better one.

So I never need TCAS? Would be not funny

I can not imagine that MS brings so much details (aerodynamics, world, ...) into the game, and then at the ATC offers such a strange solution.

Honestly, I do not care that the AI is shown live. I would be more important that the AI is controlled by the ATC, and the communication is as real as possible.

Edited October 12, 2019 by Pitbull2504

[MatthewS 761]

10 hours ago, Noooch said:

Someone talked about a "safety bubble" within AI aircrafts vanish to give you way. The bubble dimensions would vary with speed.

I think it's an interesting idea, but there must be a better one.

Yeah, it was me...   Seems to me since you can't control the real world AI all you can do is make it fade in/out if your aircraft is too close (based on speed).

 

This also seems an easy way to have the skies/ground alive with AI aircraft flying real world schedules, stars, sids, with hardly any "ATC" development from MS except for the safety bubble, and I guess the ability for the user to toggle on/off AI aircraft completely

Edited October 12, 2019 by MatthewS

[Noooch 1,084]

9 hours ago, Pitbull2504 said:

Honestly, I do not care that the AI is shown live. I would be more important that the AI is controlled by the ATC, and the communication is as real as possible.

I disagree completely, the idea of seeing true live traffic around you ( and ideally be part of it) is truly unique and immersive.

Time has past, I think we have to look forward, no backward. The technology is here,the data is available it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

I am pretty confident live traffic will be present, maybe as an option.

[Coneman 71]

I'm not sure what is meant by Live AI. I can't believe that MS will provide accurate worldwide flightplans and all the models to go with them. This would be enough for another whole addon, such as UTLive. I think we have to remember the cost and surely they don't want to price the sim out of the market. They could possibly do as in FSX, use the default models (we need a 737) and generic flightplans. I find it interesting that I see what looks like all Airbus's in a hybrid factory scheme at KSFO. Is this the French influence?? 😁  I will be more than happy if I can carry my FSX native AI horde over to FS2020.

[bonchie 2,305]

1 hour ago, Coneman said:

I'm not sure what is meant by Live AI. I can't believe that MS will provide accurate worldwide flightplans and all the models to go with them. This would be enough for another whole addon, such as UTLive. I think we have to remember the cost and surely they don't want to price the sim out of the market. They could possibly do as in FSX, use the default models (we need a 737) and generic flightplans. I find it interesting that I see what looks like all Airbus's in a hybrid factory scheme at KSFO. Is this the French influence?? 😁  I will be more than happy if I can carry my FSX native AI horde over to FS2020.

They already have tested it. They aren't using text based flight plans. They are piping in actual live data from traffic around the world, which is actually a fairly simple thing to do when you think about it.

Whether that'll be the system that makes the sim or they go with a more traditional AI system, we don't know yet.

Edited October 13, 2019 by bonchie

[MatthewS 761]

13 hours ago, MatthewS said:

Seems to me since you can't control the real world AI all you can do is make it fade in/out if your aircraft is too close (based on speed).

Actually, I think the bubble would be based on "time to impact", so that's a function of distance and closing speed of the two aircraft.

Edited October 13, 2019 by MatthewS

[F737MAX 5,604]

If the user aeroplane is recognised as having gear down and flaps extended, then it's clearly on approach (gear up usually happens shortly after takeoff). The "safety bubble" where AI are deleted is implemented. Alternatively, no traffic in the 'bubble' between 1,500 and 5 feet AGL.

In all other situations, AI remains intact so TCAS is relevant.

Live traffic is fantastic, it makes such a difference to see aircraft holding near Heathrow or on the Canarsie approach at JFK. Would be great to have AIS data feed for marine traffic also.

As for ATC controlling live AI. Instead of active controlling, ATC just announces what is happening in the real world. Perhaps delay the feed for a few seconds for the ATC module to recognise what is happening and then have ATC 'give instructions'. Failing that, in certain areas I would turn off synthetic ATC for listening to LiveATC for that extra realism.

[MatthewS 761]

51 minutes ago, F737NG said:

If the user aeroplane is recognised as having gear down and flaps extended, then it's clearly on approach (gear up usually happens shortly after takeoff). The "safety bubble" where AI are deleted is implemented. Alternatively, no traffic in the 'bubble' between 1,500 and 5 feet AGL.

My solution is that there is one safety bubble around your aircraft for each AI aircraft.

The safety bubble grows or contracts depending on "time to impact" with the AI aircraft.

The longer the "time to impact" the smaller the safety bubble, thus the safety bubble for an AI aircraft that is not on a collision course with your aircraft is going to be infinitely small (ie essentially none existent) and thus that AI aircraft will never "fade out".

The shorter the "time to impact" the large the safety bubble, thus AI aircraft that are on a collision course with your aircraft are going to fade-out at some point.

The time radius of the safety bubble, ie the time at which the AI aircraft will fade out could be user configurable. I might like AI aircraft to fade out at 30 seconds, otherwise might like 60 seconds etc.

The AI aircraft fades-in when it exits the other side of the safety bubble.

In any-case, this "time to impact" nature of the safety bubble allows the maximum number of aircraft to exist around your aircraft (no matter what it's stage of flight, including taxi).

This technique would also work with real world AI ground vehicles, if the data was available, and maybe some airports make this data available, I don't know.

Edited October 13, 2019 by MatthewS

[Deleted 250]

On 10/12/2019 at 11:03 PM, Noooch said:

I disagree completely, the idea of seeing true live traffic around you ( and ideally be part of it) is truly unique and immersive.

Time has past, I think we have to look forward, no backward. The technology is here,the data is available it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

I am pretty confident live traffic will be present, maybe as an option.

I was also impressed by the idea at first. But after considering the cons I am more worried.

• No communication between ATC and AI (In the ATC there is only radio traffic between you and ATC, AI is missing) AI pulls the direction, without instruction by radio
• No holdings because of too much traffic
• TCAS shows you close to AI, and disappears when AI gets too close

Realism is sinking more in my opinion, if these points are missing

[JanH 4]

• Using live traffic more or less restricts you to using the corresponding real-life weather, too, because otherwise you can end up with situations where the required runway usage due to the in-sim weather doesn't match the runway usage of the real world AI traffic, and going against the stream of AI traffic - even with a "safety bubble" - doesn't seem very immersive
• Ground traffic that doesn't react to your presence other than fading in and out generally seems an iffy proposition, even when you don't want to use the runway in the opposite direction to the rest of the AI traffic
• How good is the coverage of potential live traffic data sources a) globally and b) for smaller GA traffic, too?
• True "live" traffic means you need to be flying in real time, which can be rather restrictive depending on where you want to fly (e.g. when for me it's a reasonable time of the day for flight-simming, it's stupid o'clock in Australasia with probably not much traffic around anyway), so at a minimum you need some amount of recorded historic traffic, too

[Noooch 1,084]

3 hours ago, Pitbull2504 said:

I was also impressed by the idea at first. But after considering the cons I am more worried.

• No communication between ATC and AI (In the ATC there is only radio traffic between you and ATC, AI is missing) AI pulls the direction, without instruction by radio
• No holdings because of too much traffic
• TCAS shows you close to AI, and disappears when AI gets too close

Realism is sinking more in my opinion, if these points are missing

1- you can hear both live ATC and AI ATCwhich mute the live audio if it needs to talk to you

2- If AI ATC can see live traffic (depicted in-game) it can reasonnably fit you into the flow, and command you in accordance to what real AI traffic is doing.

2 hours ago, JanH said:

• Using live traffic more or less restricts you to using the corresponding real-life weather, too, because otherwise you can end up with situations where the required runway usage due to the in-sim weather doesn't match the runway usage of the real world AI traffic, and going against the stream of AI traffic - even with a "safety bubble" - doesn't seem very immersive
• Ground traffic that doesn't react to your presence other than fading in and out generally seems an iffy proposition, even when you don't want to use the runway in the opposite direction to the rest of the AI traffic
• How good is the coverage of potential live traffic data sources a) globally and b) for smaller GA traffic, too?
• True "live" traffic means you need to be flying in real time, which can be rather restrictive depending on where you want to fly (e.g. when for me it's a reasonable time of the day for flight-simming, it's stupid o'clock in Australasia with probably not much traffic around anyway), so at a minimum you need some amount of recorded historic traffic, too

1- Yes this would only be interesting in real-weather, so real traffic could be optionnal

3 - GA have squawks so they should appear

 

 

[MatthewS 761]

Simulating ATC seems very complicated to me.

Having an option to show real life AI in FS2020 seems like a relatively easy thing to implement, which will make the skies and airports alive with traffic.

They could easily deduce which runways are active by looking at the real world traffic and give you a simplistic ATC that clears you for the active runway.

Implement the "safety bubble" and fade-out/in aircraft that are getting too close to your aircraft.

Sure it's not perfect, and you could turn off the real world traffic, but frankly I'd rather have the world populated with traffic.