FedEx Studying Robot Cargo Planes

Posted 3 Feb 2005 at 18:38 UTC by steve

An article in the Memphis Business Journal describes research being done at the FedEx Institute of Technology to develop robot cargo planes that don't need pilots. The article doesn't give any specifics about the program but says it's "on the horizon". It may refer to the experiments some years ago in which Raytheon and FedEx autolanded a 727-200 cargo plane using LAAS and JPALS. At the time it was rumored they were going to work on a remotely piloted 727 next. The article says FedEx is also working on "performance enhancement" technology for their human workers that will "increase the human capacity to accomplish more work".