AI Safety Aviation

Roadmap Overview

FOCUS: Flight Operational Companion for Unexpected Situations

FOCUS is an advanced, AI-driven assistant designed to help commercial pilots manage sudden and surprising events within the cockpit. In high-stress situations, pilots may experience natural “freeze” reactions, delayed responses, or unintended inputs, which can compromise safety and increase risk. FOCUS has been designed to address this challenge by monitoring for signs of such startling events in aircraft readings and pilot biometrics. After detection, FOCUS will provide real-time guidance to help pilots quickly regain situational control. Through intuitive, timely interventions, FOCUS enhances flight safety by enabling pilots to confidently navigate complex and unexpected scenarios. This technology roadmap outlines the developmental path for FOCUS, highlighting its role in advancing safety, reducing operational risks, and supporting pilots with reliable, real-time assistance.

Design Structure Matrix (DSM) Allocation

Our technology roadmap focuses on an Adaptive Cockpit (3ADC) at the subsystem level (level 3). Components of the adaptive cockpit are AI for interpreting and modeling data to determine aircraft and pilot status (4AI), Biometric Sensors for measuring pilot status indicators (4BIO), aircraft sensors for detecting aircraft status (4ACS), adaptive displays that can highlight critical information for a pilot (4ADD), a lighting system that assists pilots in maintaining respiratory rates and creating a calming atmosphere (4LIS), and the pilot responsible for flying the aircraft (4PIL). Other subsystems in the cockpit include navigation and communication systems (3NAC), and flight controls (3FLC). We have also listed other level 2 products that support our level 1 market of safe commercial aviation (1SCA).

Roadmap OPD

In the figure below, we provide an Object-Process-Diagram (OPD) of the 3ADC roadmap. This diagram captures the main object of the roadmap (FOCUS), its main process (Teaming), the various tools required, the sub-processes required for FOCUS, and the change in the status of the pilot as a result of Teaming. Additionally, we have included a breakdown of the Temaing process into its three sub-processes (Detecting, Supporting, and Augmenting).

Figures of Merit

Important FOMs for 3AISC

Figure of Merit	Description	Trends	Units
Incident Rate	Rate of incidents and accidents normalized by flight time aircraft	decreasing	$\frac{\text{incidents}}{\text{passenger mile}}$
System Maintainability	How much time is spend maintaining aircraft systems, measured by comparing maintenance time per flight time	decreasing	$\frac{\text{maintenance hours}}{\text{passenger mile}}$
Response Time	Time required to identify and mitigate safety issues	flat	$\text{minutes}$
System Uptime	Amount of time aircraft is available to be dispatched on a mission as a percentage of wall time	increasing	$\text{\%}$
Cognitive Load on Crew	As measured by industry standard NASA TLX score	flat	$\text{unitless}$

Detail of Accidents per Passenger Hour