Journey From Wheel To Autopilot

The greatest invention that was ever done in the entire history of mankind was ‘Wheel’; this invention has simplified almost every difficult task. The very first wheels were used to carry goods from one place to another.

This simple round structure saved a large amount of time. As the years progressed the importance of ‘wheel’ increased exponentially and now every second task we do in our daily lives involve wheel in one or the other way. The wheels which we really care about the most are those of vehicles in which we travel and now these vehicles have become a crucial part of our lives. Journey of these vehicles was just like the journey of man from the Stone Age to the present model world. Man evolved himself from nothing to everything and also upgraded the surroundings in which he lived to best of his benefits. In that surrounding vehicle was one amongst the things that got evolved, it started its journey from a wheel, got fixed to an axel and became a cart which man pulled himself or made an animal to do so; horses were the most common animals used for this purpose. As the years passed the carts took shape of cars and fire breathing engines took place of horses. Both cart and car had one aspect in common and that was it needs someone to control it i.e. a person.

Now let’s come to the era of technological advancements where the heart of the vehicle experienced tremendous changes.An engine is a mechanical part of a vehicle which requires fuel for reciprocating motion of pistons which are connected to wheels through a series of gear system. In simpler scientific words we can say that it is a mechanical machine which converts thermal energy to mechanical energy is an engine. The size of an engine may vary from very small scooter engine (1 cylinder) to very large rocket engines.

ROCKET ENGINE

Now here the main task arrives, which is to control these engines and get maximum output from them. As the size of the engine increases so is the skill required to operate. It will be really difficult for a single man to operate a really big engine. Therefore a proper systematic system of different controls should be present near the operator of the vehicle so that he can easily access them when required. Also a man could not run a vehicle for long durations because everyone has limits. For all this a solution came in ‘Autopilot’ ,in this system operator of the vehicle does not influence the functioning of the vehicle directly he just have to set the destination course and the vehicle will drive automatically. It is based on artificial intelligence. Most of the flights have an autopilot system but the pilot has to handle the takeoff and landing manually. Other vehicles are also use autopilot for comfort of driving.

AUTOPILOT SYSTEM