Microsoft test flies autonomous sailplane to see new AI tech in action

Microsoft has completed a series of test flights of a miniature plane which stays aloft without a motor and no remote human pilot.

Once launched, the sailplane uses thermals to stay up in the sky mirroring the actions of birds.

The technology inside the plane is artificial intelligence (AI). Data about the environment is absorbed by on-board systems and then computed into actions so the plane keeps flying. And flying. And flying.

The sailplane, tested in the Nevada desert in the US, serves as an easily visible demonstration of AI at work.

Ashish Kapoor, a principal researcher at Microsoft, said: “Birds do this seamlessly, and all they’re doing is harnessing nature. And they do it with a peanut-sized brain.”

Sequential decision making – a computer taking in data and then making real-time decisions based on that information – is super complex in the computing world.

It also has to appreciate real world barriers like height restrictions, no-fly zones and trees, and, during the test flights, dusty desert conditions.

Kapoor adds: “It’s really the question of, ‘How do you plan for the future, several steps ahead?’ Computationally, that’s a very hard problem.”

On each flight, the plane learns more about what works and gradually becomes more intelligent.

The white, red and black Styrofoam sailplane measures 16-and-a-half-feet and weighs 12.5 lbs and is battery operated. In the future it could run on solar or wind power raising the possibility of it staying airborne indefinitely.

Although it is fun for the team to create an autonomous plane, the testing is more about what else the technology could be used for once it is working.

Kapoor envisages the infinite soaring machine taking on practical tasks such as monitoring crops in rural areas, mapping or providing mobile Internet service in a place where there’s no easy way to get connectivity.

“These can be your cellular towers someday,” Kapoor said. “You don’t need any ground infrastructure.”

Andrey Kolobov, the Microsoft researcher in charge of the project’s research and engineering effots, said: “For us, the sailplane is a testbed for technologies at the core of anything that will be considered intelligent in the next 10 years.

“AI in the real world will have very little room for error, like our sailplane.”