Auto-ATC... what does it actually offer ?

[jcomm 5,958]

Along my long simmer life I have never really gotten into virtual / simulated ATC.

Tried VATSIM and IVAO long ago, but it could not fit my disponibility to seat at the desktop for a flight simulator session during those times... or find some active controllers available for the regions I used to try to fly from - to. Opted for a couple ATC robots, but none surprised me sufficiently to adopt it... SO, until today I keep playing these flight simulation games without really using the ATC component.

Now, I've seen Auto ATC mentioned here and specially at the .Org, and would really like to get any feedback from users.

It looks like it  requires something I do not own - a mobile phone of the modern ages with a fancy Android OS... That is the main factor keeping me from trying the demo, unless I can convince wify to lend me her Android companion 🙂

From the couple videos I watched - and I am seeking additional media - looks like it does use some interesting robotization of ATC, but I'm not sure how it copes with VFR, IFR, and all of their variants ?

Any feedback really welcomed.

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by jcomm
Mostly typos and fine tuning :-)

[tweekz 2,165]

The creator of that thing, @mSparks is around here. When he is not busy finding flaws in the new MSFS2020, he can probably tell you everything you wanna know.

As any feedback is appreciated, here is mine:

I tried to find out what that software actually does and did not really succeed. I think it is kind of a speech to text interface to X-Plane ATC. If you want to learn ATC, there are plenty resources on phraseology on the web and Youtube. You can even listen into actual ATC at https://www.liveatc.net/ and pick up things.

Unfortunately those automated ATCs are not really immersive nor are they realistic.

If you have a basic understanding (how to do requests and handle instructions), just hop on IVAO or VATSIM. Put a info in your flightplan that you are new and ATC will be forgiving (as they usually are). Some Youtubers (like V1, the real Airbus pilot) are really crazy about PilotEdge. I didn't really look into it, but it seems it is quite professional, with real world ATC controllers practising there.

Edited January 19, 2020 by tweekz

[jcomm 5,958]

Thx tweekz,

well, I use ATC, although not quite a lot, even if sometimes I should ( shhhhhh! ) in my real life flying as a glider pilot for more than 3 decades, and I am familiar with it's various intricacies 🙂

I just never used while playing flight simulators other than the very simplistic but nonetheless effective robot offered with Aerowinx PSX.

I alsways found default atc in MSFS and XP pure rubish, so I don't even try to use it.

So, Auto-ATC, from your description, appears to only offer text-2-speech from the default ATC in the sim and not some "AI" chat, although I got the idea from at least one of the videos I watched that it also did so.

Question is... How does it model the interaction with the various agents involved in controlled flight ? Does it take into consideration the type of flight ( vfr / ifr ) and automatically generate dialogues with you from those virtual agents ? 

Apparently it also generates "chat" from surrounding AI aircraft ?

 

[tweekz 2,165]

34 minutes ago, jcomm said:

So, Auto-ATC, from your description, appears to only offer text-2-speech from the default ATC in the sim and not some "AI" chat, although I got the idea from at least one of the videos I watched that it also did so.

That was just a guess. I don't know what logic he actually implemented and to what extent. I just found those automated ATC systems not useful to me in general. I prefer either to talk with real people or just simulate the ATC in my mind. 😄 That may differ from person to person tho.

You should wait for mSparks answer on this or from someone who actually used it. I just read through the discription, but it was not really conclusive to me.

Edited January 19, 2020 by tweekz

[Les Parson 99]

As a former controller (USAF/FAA/DOA Australia), I think Pilotedge is as real as it gets. The professionalism and unexpected happenings add to the immersion. 

The only exception is the same controller is forced to work multiple facilities. ATC staffing is often a real-world issue and it applies in the sim world as well. 

 

[jcomm 5,958]

Thank you Les,

I have known about Pilotedge for a while, but it's too expensive for me, and since I neverf am certain to have a continuous time at the desktop for simulation, one of the reasons why I long abandoned VATSIM and IVAO, makes it kind of useless for me 😕 although I agree it is indeed an excellent option for sure.

[Bjoern 1,157]

Auto-ATC has very high potential, but in its current state, it lacks documentation, features and consistency to be a tool for day-to-day use. If @mSparks can follow up with the plan he has for the tool (a qualified training application for real world aviation radio communications), it could become the best option aside from human operated ATC services (PilotEdge, VATSIM/IVAO, etc.). We will see.

As I use an Android phone, I bought the "Pro" app when it was on sale last year to fund further development.

 

9 hours ago, jcomm said:

I alsways found default atc in MSFS and XP pure rubish, so I don't even try to use it.

So, Auto-ATC, from your description, appears to only offer text-2-speech from the default ATC in the sim and not some "AI" chat, although I got the idea from at least one of the videos I watched that it also did so.

Question is... How does it model the interaction with the various agents involved in controlled flight ? Does it take into consideration the type of flight ( vfr / ifr ) and automatically generate dialogues with you from those virtual agents ? 

Apparently it also generates "chat" from surrounding AI aircraft ?

 

Your judgement of MSFS' ATC is unfair. If you consider all the bases that an ATC simulation has to cover (VFR/IFR, AI, terrain avoidance, airspace composition, ACCs/ARTCCs, procedures, different voices, low resource usage, callsign support), it does a bloody good job. Yes, it's simplified in places and does have its bugs, but Aces at least managed to get the whole package working. I haven't seen much, if anything, on the civilian side of the flightsim market that can match its flexibility and I've seen a lot. (Falcon 4's ATC on the military side is also really good.)

 

Auto-ATC uses speech-to-text for your requests and readbacks and generates responses from text-to-speech, either via the mobile device or a local TTS provider installed with the plugin.

As of now, center controllers are not implemented yet, so all you get is agents related to airports (departure or arrival). IFR is under development, VFR is mostly implemented. Requests need to be phrased correctly and the agents generate the correct responses.

Auto-ATC comes with its own AI engine running on a server (to save CPU cycles on the client side computer; think LiveTraffic without real ADS-B data), so it's fully aware of AI traffic, who interacts with ATC using text-to-speech. Not all airports in X-Plane are mapped internally yet, so AI aircraft on unsupported airports may exhibit strange behavior. No GA traffic yet.

[jcomm 5,958]

Bjoern, Thanks a Lot! for your comprehensive description of Auto-ATC.

It looks indeed promising.

Regarding MSFS, I agree I was a bit unfair in my assessment… 🙂

P.S.: If Sparks can get hie's project ahead as you resumed above, then LR should better considering hiring him into the team for a new ATC / AI system for XP12...

Edited January 19, 2020 by jcomm

[mSparks 2,090]

It started its life as

AutoATC is a "chatbot" using
Text to Speech
and
Speech to Text
To simulate, practice and test aircraft radio communication.

That was written before I got my PPLH, You'll still see this knocking around, but this simple, nerdy seed has grown somewhat, not least thanks to the awesome support of people like @Bjoern, along with everyone who has given feedback and asked questions

Right now a better description would be something like "AutoATC is combined voice controlled AI ATC and AI aircraft with global coverage".

Dont think I've ever mentioned that AutoATC draws its naming inspiration from the AUTODOC in the movie Passengers (my real life speciality is healthcare simulations with lots of AI and a very large library of 100% my own IP), just to give a feel of what I would like to achieve....

Right now it has exactly $0 marketing budget, this is by choice, Bjoern's assessment is entirely fair, just organic growth has given me many sleepless nights, and all my funding is directed at further development. Things are starting to finally mature.

Probably the "most complete" shorter video I have of what it can currently offer is the first part of the video I already posted on here:

Thats "link only" at the moment, because I still need to add some voice over describing offensive initials not allowed is going on......

14 hours ago, jcomm said:

but I'm not sure how it copes with VFR, IFR, and all of their variants ?

The original goalpost - no flight plan VFR communications is feature complete.

Progress on everything else I do my best to convey via the version numbers in the about of the phone app, at time of writing they are currently:

api version 0.8.8.11 (the AI Server); vfr 0.8.0; ifr 0.6.8

Whats left of VFR is all flight plan related and (probably) a chunk of language that will get picked up soon. getting IFR more complete needs more work on the flight plan handling 

4 hours ago, Bjoern said:

it lacks documentation

Not my fault!

Aviation comms documentation is basically nothing more than a ton of multiple choice questions along the lines of "Q:An aircraft will be in the best range for VFR communications if it is: A. in the vicinity of the airfield." -> of practical use to exactly no one who ever sat in a cockpit. I had to start completely from scratch. The latest phone app has a "ground school" section, there is still a lot more to go in that, and I'm already working with or in discussion with a couple of ATOs to get it right, everything basic needed for startup->taxi->take off->navigate->approach->land->taxi will be [finally] written up and reviewed very soon.

____

For now, you can generally explore everything for free anyway, paid app is still "to fund development", but also now if you want to do flights where you can both talk and see the ai planes (ai planes have been optimised enough that work with only the plugin on a reasonable multicore machine, but connecting the free phone app disables that, and eventually that will become a 15 minute demo)

5 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Not all airports in X-Plane are mapped internally yet, so AI aircraft on unsupported airports may exhibit strange behavior.

Airports are divided into three levels internally,

lvl0->no taxi lanes defined, these you will just be told to hold short of the runway (quite a significant number of airports, and the hardest to get ai plane taxi routing right, which often causes the ai planes to fail to initialise)

lvl1->defined and named taxi lanes, these you will get taxi instructions which must be read back correctly to progress, ai planes should behave well, a few thousand airports. 

lvl2->hand crafted additional information (such as disabled runways for take off land) and additional testing (currently only EGLL, EGCC and KSEA)

More details on which airports these are will go up on github once recompiling them all to the latest standards is complete, a lot of the current strange behavior is now fixed bugs related to building the airport maps.

5 hours ago, Bjoern said:

No GA traffic yet.

To a fashion, there is actually GA traffic, and they can fly flight plans, such as the S76 I create the custom flight plan for in the video above, or the TUCA on the youtube channel. The problem is currently you'll most likely never see them default because they all fly out of either untowered airports which the AI doesn't support yet, or small lvl0 airports that they fail on. Fixing that is planned for soon after the ground school basics are in.

15 hours ago, tweekz said:

When he is not busy finding flaws in the new MSFS2020

A very large chunk of last year was spent with nothing but this eye bleed inducing test material in front of me. Fixing FUBAR

I'll be the first to admit I did not use all that time while waiting for something to happen entirely wisely. Coupled with a passion for birds, guns, birds with guns and double/triple entendres and I'm always getting in some kind of trouble with the PCs. But 1st world problems are not my problems.

My youtube channel is a dumping ground for test materials, demos as things start working and fun little general real life snippets I feel like sharing.

[jcomm 5,958]

Thank you for taking the time to explain what Auto-ATC, was, is, and may become.

I am certainly interested, for now on, in what it may become.

Beware, the guys at ASOBO might find the whole concept interesting to implement a revamped version of ATC in MSF !  After all they adopted the finite-model based FDM XP has been using for ages.

I might even expect a commercial version of Auto-ATC for both platforms, and, who knows ( saw that Battle of Britain video... ) for DCS World and IL2 Battle of... 🙂

My biggest limitation is still ( as if it was only this 🙂 ) the rather old PC I bought in 2012 to play MS FLIGHT, an i5 2500 ( not the "k" series ) at 3,3GHz, and a GTX 960 4GB GPU, in a nice but rather outdated Mobo ( ASUS ) with "only" 16 GB of DDR3 RAM. I fear the AI might make XP11 a bit moe stuttery.

For instance, I support SimHeaven, and even download it as well as OpenSceneryX, but seldom enable it because of the impact in performance.

Really looking forward to test Auto-ATC, but I will definitely have to consider - finally - buying a smartphone and drop my old mobile :-/.... I'm considering a cheap Xiaomi, and I can even justify the investmente for my glider flying, since I often ask wife her ( unseparable ) mobile companion.

Interesting your "origin" from what pays your base salary. I know of yet another very tallented developer who has been around for some good years helping the scenery side of XP to become gorgeous 🙂 And, btw, AI and Formal Language were my first job too, before having uninstalled it and got into the Meteo world ....

 

[mSparks 2,090]

3 hours ago, jcomm said:

I fear the AI might make XP11 a bit moe stuttery.

pc side should be light, especially when most of the calculation is handed over to the android device. I dont have minimum specs. Be interested to know. Can only try.

3 hours ago, jcomm said:

finally - buying a smartphone and drop my old mobile 😕

I went with the samsung A70 for my latest phone. Very very pleased with it. headphone jack, good screen and cameras,  not stupidly expensive plus Android 9 and soon 10, a long long way from the early android days.

3 hours ago, jcomm said:

Beware, the guys at ASOBO might find the whole concept interesting to implement a revamped version of ATC in MSF !  After all they adopted the finite-model based FDM XP has been using for ages.

From the recent sdk announcement it is now even more certain msfs2020 is not going to support plugins like this. It's not a plane, mission, scenery or airport. At least there will still be Alsim and Unigine to keep me busy after XP development matures a little more.

Only 3rd party development partners will have access to the SDK in which they will be able to create and edit airports, sceneries, planes and missions.

[jcomm 5,958]

4 hours ago, mSparks said:

From the recent sdk announcement it is now even more certain msfs2020 is not going to support plugins like this. It's not a plane, mission, scenery or airport. At least there will still be Alsim and Unigine to keep me busy after XP development matures a little more.

 

 

ALSIM, and former RTS-Pro which never really came to plain existence, was a very promising IFR training tool as an option to my good-old ELITE.

Would be great if you could also cooperate with Aerowinx PSX - which is itself a Java App...

[mSparks 2,090]

15 minutes ago, jcomm said:

cooperate with Aerowinx PSX

no reason not to.

ACARS integration is in development for the YA747 (although I completely wasted 5 hours over the weekend under the incorrect assumption the nav radios could be tuned from the radio panel), its also looking likely that may take priority over the WWII "fun" stuff.

20 hours ago, Bjoern said:

As of now, center controllers are not implemented yet

I meant to comment on this before. still not 100% exactly what this will look like, technically its the automatic cross country frequency handovers that aren't implemented, of which areas served by center is one of many options (VFR seems to get handed over from one airport to another for example), still working on a basic set of rules that will simulate that with reasonable realism. If any body has seen a guide on which and how its decided to hand an aircraft over to another frequency while it flies cross country would be very glad to read it.

Its not as simple as ->entering new class A->hand over to class A center. For a start VFR pilots never enter class A airspace, still need handing over.

[jcomm 5,958]

Ah!  Then you might be interested in the following thread :

http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=5419.0

Edited January 20, 2020 by jcomm

[mSparks 2,090]

7 minutes ago, jcomm said:

Ah!  Then you might be interested in the following thread :

http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=5419.0

yeah, that. it started with saturday as "I assume hf1/2 is nav1/2 and am is the adf?"

no one corrected me and 5 hours tweeking later I see 2 adfs in the documentation, dig a load deeper and discover they are all just simple com radios and the nav radios are only accessible through the FMC. (already worked some on the nav autotune but I was hoping for a simple way to test things.)

Been a long while since I made that big of a rookie mistake.

good to know it wasnt a complete waste.