Augmented Flight Management System for Future Single Pilot Operations

The next leap in civil aviation features the advent of Single Pilot Operations (SPO) which is expected to form the basis of the tomorrow air transport operations. Transition to SPO raises however many issues around safety risks, public acceptance, regulatory changes and certification, as human redundancy from the flight deck will be removed. It provides also numerous opportunities for the development of single-pilot-centered technologies. This paper promotes a human-centered pathway to support more autonomy by combining learning-enabled and data-driven components with model-based robust control theories, with limited impact on today airworthiness certification processes. This provides a realistic near-future perspective before, yet to come, breakthroughs around interpretable and trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the cockpit. The paper briefly sketches some aspects related to risk-mitigation issues in SPO.