Grant: Alliance Grants

There is a critical shortage of commercial pilots in Canada. 55,000 additional pilots will be needed by 2025, in large part because pilots qualified to conduct such training are in very high demand and short supply. With this partnership, pioneers in human-in-the-loop research and intelligent tutoring systems from the University of Alberta and the University of Manitoba join forces with Delphi Technology Corp (DTC), an innovative Winnipeg-based flight training solution provider. We will collaborate to provide novel methods to improve trainee student outcomes without requiring additional instructors to facilitate them. The primary outcome of this project is to improve DTC's ability to quickly train more pilots with high success rates without increasing instructor workload. The solutions proposed in this research will help to 1) train more student pilots efficiently, 2) increase retention of students, 3) scale student training to better satisfy this scarcity of pilots, and 4) provide a versatile and effective training platform. This applied research will use machine learning and intelligent tutoring system techniques to enable a new, simulation-based training pipeline that aims to dramatically increase the success of DTC's training program. Fundamental research, conducted concurrently, will also help advance the state of the art human-AI collaboration and tutoring.