NE North Dakota News

A team from the University of North Dakota (UND) has been named a finalist in the 2024 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Data Challenge. The group, consisting of aviators, is utilizing artificial intelligence to enhance communication between air traffic controllers and pilots, aiming to improve safety.

The FAA's Data Challenge seeks proposals that use advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning to enhance aviation safety and efficiency. This competition offers university students the opportunity to assist the FAA as it integrates new computing technologies into the national airspace system.

The UND team's project focuses on identifying attitudes that pilots may exhibit under stress. These attitudes can range from overconfidence to helplessness. By training an AI program with archival radio footage, the team aims to help controllers better understand and manage these pilot attitudes in real-time.

Caroline Kelley, a certified flight instructor and team member, explained their goal: “Our goal is to use radio transmissions to identify any sentences of their dialog that might exhibit those hazardous attitudes, and then, in real time, present that information to air traffic controllers so that they can better handle that aircraft and understand what might be influencing that pilot.”

Joining Kelley are Zachary Hoff, another certified flight instructor who participated in last year's challenge, and Andie Akenson, an online student pursuing a master’s degree in Aviation. The team is led by Brandon Wild, associate professor of Aviation at UND.

Wild expressed pride in his team's achievements: “I love to see that our students can become finalists in the Data Challenge without being engineers or computer scientists but because of their aviation knowledge, and also their knowledge of how aviation data works,” he said.

Kelley acknowledged the hard work of air traffic controllers at Grand Forks International Airport who manage numerous student flights daily. She hopes their project will alleviate some pressures faced by these professionals.

The UND team will compete against six other universities for $100,000 in prize money when they travel to Washington this March for the final round of the competition.