'PIBOT' Humanoid Robot Can Fly a Plane from Takeoff to Landing

Researchers at KAIST in South Korea are testing a humanoid robot called PIBOT (pilot robot) that is designed to operate a regular aircraft by sitting in the pilot's seat and using the controls just like a human would. PIBOT demonstrated its skills on a flight simulator at the 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2016) in Daejeon, South Korea. The robot can turn the engine on, taxi, take off, fly, and land. It relies on input from the simulator to determine the location and state of the aircraft and lands successfully 80 percent of the time.