Category: Aviation

As the role of the commercial flight attendant grows ever more important in ensuring the protection of passengers, both in-person and emerging technologies will play a role in their training.

Last year was the second most disruptive with regards to unruly U.S. airline passengers since the FAA started tracking data in the mid-1990s, with 2,456 unruly passenger reports and 831 investigations initiated in 2022. These totals are second only to the year that preceded it, which saw the all-time high of 1,099 investigations initiated during 2021 at the height of the pandemic.

Airline flight attendants have often borne the brunt of such bad behavior by passengers, which can include both verbal and physical abuse. Although the number of unruly passenger incidents dropped and leveled off following the end of the U.S. mask mandate on May 3, 2022, staying at or under the weekly average of 2.4 incidents per week for the remainder of that year, violent incidents by passengers have still been frequent enough to cause continuing concern among flight crews and the flying public.

Currently, commercial flight attendants can access in-person training from regulatory agencies, their employers and training vendors to learn how to protect themselves and passengers during these kinds of disruptive events. However, emerging technologies such as virtual reality and the metaverse are also expected to provide exciting new opportunities for learning and skill-building in the future, by making training more engaging and accessible for airline cabin crew members, as well as other airport employees, than ever before.

Existing Security Training Options

According to the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, the ability of flight attendants to de-escalate and handle unruly passengers has been crucial to ensuring the protection of passengers and the crew members themselves. The AFA strongly encourages flight attendants to participate in the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Crew Member Self Defense (CMSD) Training program, a four-hour performance-based training program tailored to airline crew members with little or no experience in self-defense techniques.

Attended voluntarily on the crew member’s own time, the program teaches the basic fundamentals of self-defense, which include stance and movement techniques, target areas of the body, personal and field-expedient weapons that might be utilized during an encounter, power-generating techniques, and mindset, i.e., mental preparation for a confrontation. The training also includes various upper and lower body strikes, how to protect against strikes being thrown by using blocks and cover techniques, and how to defend against any hand-held weapons that could be brought aboard an aircraft.

“Participants are not expected to master these techniques in this short period of time, but instead provide themselves with the mindset and self-confidence to deal with an unexpected situation,” said Max Weitzner, a spokesperson for the TSA.

The TSA is always looking to update techniques and procedures for its CMSD training program, and the agency also has worked to make this training more accessible to the crew member community by locating training sites near major airports, according to Weitzner. “From the four locations where CMSD training was initially launched, the program has expanded to include 19 sites nationwide. Since TSA launched the CMSD training program in 2004, over 26,000 crew members have received this training,” he said.

“In the last few years, many airlines have requested the TSA CMSD training program for their new hire candidates at their training facilities. To date, we have multiple airlines that have instituted the TSA CMSD training program into their initial training,” he said. “Through classes like these, we are able to share our skills and experience with our aviation counterparts. This partnership and what we are teaching today strengthens the overall transportation security posture.”

Aside from TSA training options, airlines can also provide their own customized training on how flight attendants should address incidents with disruptive passengers, and these courses have traditionally been conducted in person. For example, Delta Air Lines provides a rigorous six-week program incorporating both classroom and hands-on training, which addresses not only unruly passengers but anything that can happen during flight, including turbulence, medical emergencies and emergency landings.

Additionally, airline training schools such as Canada-based Inflight Institute offer virtual course options to ensure that flight attendant training is available to workers worldwide, regardless of where they live or might travel.

“Cabin crew traditionally are very authentic and helpful people, but there are stress levels with that job, and not only the normal day-to-day ones, but also all number of things that can affect the performance of the crew,” said Inflight Institute president, Ivan Noel.

“Our training gives flight attendants the tools in their toolbox to have empathy and understanding,” he said. “They have a job to do, and if they have tools to do that, it’s impactful for the entire journey of the passenger. Whatever they can do to reduce stress points throughout the journey will help in the reduction of onboard incidences of disruption.”

Noel believes that one of the most important outcomes of training is ensuring the health and well-being of the crew. “That’s where our next greatest focus is, because then we can make sure that everybody’s on the same page, everyone is operating at their highest efficiency. And that well-being of the crew makes a fundamental difference in aviation security, as well,” he said.

Realistic, Interactive Virtual Training

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic was perhaps an ideal time for companies across industries to shift and invest in virtual training as a way to keep employee skills sharp during a period of extended downtime. Unfortunately, training programs were one of the first things to go when the virus hit, with many organizations cutting training budgets in the face of layoffs and other industry disruptions.

Nevertheless, the pandemic was still a time of innovation for many companies working to bring training improvements to the aviation industry, according to Grigorii Rodionov, co-founder and CEO of Netherlands-based AVIAR.

AVIAR bills itself as the world’s first virtual reality (VR) platform for the training of air transportation industry specialists. The company was founded on the belief that VR would provide an opportunity to create new and innovative training simulations for roles in aviation — such as flight attendants — that didn’t already have access to traditional flight simulator training like pilots did, Rodionov said.

After demonstrating a proof of concept at an IATA meeting in 2018 to a positive industry reception, AVIAR first began to develop virtual reality products for aviation professionals in two main areas, airline cabin crew training and ground operations training, with plans to also add airport and airline security training, pilot training and MRO training.

Rodionov suggests that VR software has the ability to serve as an effective and accessible resource for airlines and other aviation companies based anywhere in the world to use for both training support and internal certification. The company currently is developing customized solutions for several clients and working in a “mutual effort” with them to pursue regulatory certifications from EASA, he said.

“Airlines can use this virtual reality software as an additional training tool to increase the knowledge retention of flight attendants and reduce the number of fails during the certification process in specialized training centers. You’ll have better prepared trainees before the real exam,” he said.

Virtual reality training software like AVIAR’s differs in a few ways from the traditional video-based offerings available to professionals. The AVIAR platform offers a fully immersive, hyper-realistic, interactive training experience that places the user directly into the story and gives them agency, so they are making real-time decisions that immediately impact the direction and outcome of the narrative. Users wear VR headsets and gear that helps put them into the mindset of the story and engage with it as a character in the story.

“It’s an absolutely different type of media. You’re not an observer, or a spectator; you’re the person who lives in this situation or scenario. You’re the active person,” Rodionov said.

“The closer the simulation is to the real-life experience, the better the training process,” he continued. “We pay a lot of attention to such details, putting a lot of effort into realistic graphics and realistic interactions. But it’s not just about lifelike visuals, it’s about everything, including how the equipment responds. About how, if you do something wrong, what could happen next, what you will see next, and how you will feel.”

In support of its marketing to younger aviation professionals, AVIAR recently released a consumer version of its professional VR training software on the online gaming platform Steam. Rodionov described the gamification of industry outreach as being essential to future efforts in recruiting the next generation of aviation talent to the industry.

“We have to deal with a different generation of people who really perceive things in a different way,” he said. “By offering VR scenarios, we can let young people try out different roles and understand what it’s all about. It’s very important to engage them emotionally as early as possible and give them a better understanding of the environment in which they’ll be working.”

Metaverse Bringing Deeper Immersion

As the world continues to recover from the pandemic, commercial flying is at the center of the transformation of travel, and companies worldwide are investing in the digitization of their products and services as never before. Following this trend, some airlines are exploring the use of the much-hyped metaverse to train their cabin crew and other staff members.

For example, Dubai-based Emirates last October announced that it plans to train thousands of new cabin crew in the metaverse in a shift away from in-person classroom training.

While separate from existing virtual reality technology, the metaverse is a still-nascent platform that comprises both VR and augmented reality (AR) technology to fuse together real and virtual worlds, offering deeper immersion than what VR alone can provide.

The reason the metaverse is so appealing as a digital experience and training platform right now is because airline customers and workers have new expectations when they travel, said Kuruvilla Mathew, metaverse expert and chief innovation architect at UST, a digital transformation solutions provider.

“The world has definitely changed in the past two years,” said Mathew. “How do we provide a good digital ecosystem that supports the employees and gives the customers better service at the end of the day? We are looking for the travel experience to be as seamless and frictionless as possible, which puts a lot of stress on agents in the airport, airport staff, ground crews, airline crews — all of them have to do their job, which is now transformed.”

Since 2021, UST has partnered with a major U.S. airline to develop immersive digital experiences in the metaverse with the goal of improving the quality of the airline’s training and travel experiences.

In the UST-airline metaverse scenarios under development, trainees can access the experience from anywhere via different devices, including desktop, mobile and headset, but Mathew notes that the device used to access the metaverse is less important to the experience than the immersion.

“Immersion is the ability for you to get engaged in content that is so compelling, that you are drawn into the story and you are actually in the story. When you get immersed at that level, the ability for you to connect with things is huge,” he said.

“From a training perspective, you’re presented with scenarios that could be from first-, second-, or third-person perspectives, but you’re making all the choices. You’re immersed in a scenario, and you’re being presented with some sort of dilemma and you have to address it. It takes you down one path versus another and the story evolves. It’s your engagement that customizes the training experience based on the choices you make,” he said.

Mathew notes that when building metaverse training modules for any company, regardless of industry, designers ideally should begin their work with the organization’s standard operating procedures (SOPs). Those building the metaverse first need to identify what are the company’s processes for being in compliance and other requirements, in order to effectively visualize and build out specific scenarios that will fuel the digital experiences.

“Whenever you are in an immersive experience, it is very visceral,” he explained. “It connects you to that world. You can see the kinds of problems that are around you, and then you can connect the dots. And then you say that, okay, these are solutions that we can solve for.”

When UST first started on this airline project, its team went to the airport to study and understand the issues to be addressed in the metaverse context. From there, “we created a technical specification. We created graphic novels and a diorama that tells the human side of the story. When you tell the human side of the story, then what you build for is more fine-tuned and accurate,” Mathew said.

UST uses an empathy-first design approach to ensure that its digital experiences are relevant, powerful and memorable for trainees who need to retain important information and lessons learned. “One of the things that we are looking at in building this is going with an empathy-first approach, meaning let’s understand what people go through in these scenarios. Let’s not build a digital solution that doesn’t connect with people or doesn’t solve a problem,” Mathew said.

“UST always has been looking at what can we do for people,” he said. “How can we transform their experience? How can we make their lives better? That comes with empathy-first design, and really focusing on empathy and not just on usability and building a beautiful-looking user interface. Instead, let’s build a solution that’s going to help transform their lives.”

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has been hugely disruptive to travel and other global industries over the past three years, it has taken place during a period of technological advancement and societal change touching all aspects of daily life. As air travelers have gradually returned to the skies in ever-increasing numbers, commercial aviation passengers now have higher expectations for their travel experience than ever before – including the airport security experience.

Since the introduction of the first backscatter x-ray body screener in the 1990s, and especially following the events of 9/11 when countries drastically overhauled their airport security procedures, body scanning machines have evolved significantly in a relatively short period of time. These tools have not been without controversy at times, sparked by passengers seeking greater privacy and fair practices during the screening process, but today’s machines are designed to mitigate such concerns.

As this technology continues to move forward in leaps and bounds to speed up scanning times, increase detection abilities and improve the passenger experience, some countries are now adopting the latest solution for safeguarding people and planes at airport facilities, in the form of millimeter wave imaging using advanced imaging technology (AIT).

According to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), AIT safely screens passengers without physical contact for both metallic and non-metallic threats that may be concealed under a passenger’s clothing. Today’s AIT offers threat detection software and algorithms that can detect explosives, weapons and dangerous items, and display markers on a generic human-like representative figure on a screen to show where threats are located without exposing the details of passengers’ bodies and unnecessarily invading their privacy.

Airport Body Scanners: An Overview

Full-body scanner technologies used for airport security around the world fall into three main categories: x-ray, millimeter wave and infra-red. These security tools can detect concealed objects without requiring physical contact or clothing removal.

The first body scanners developed for airport security were backscatter x-ray machines, which emit low levels of electromagnetic ionizing radiation, or low-energy x-rays, that bounce off the surface of the skin and are reflected back to the machine to detect and generate a photographic image of concealed objects. This type of x-ray scanner is still used by airports worldwide. By contrast, transmission x-ray scanners use higher dosages of radiation that pass directly through the body before being captured by detectors, providing the ability to detect objects inside body cavities, but these machines are virtually unheard of for airport use these days and more typically used by correctional institutions.

Millimeter wave body scanners use non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation in the form of low-energy, high-frequency radio waves to send energy across scanned surfaces, which reflect off the surface of the skin to be interpreted by the machine and reveal objects hidden on a body. These scanners detect threats by using one or more antennas that move around a person’s body to construct a 3D image.

Backscatter x-ray and millimeter wave machines today are the two main airport body scanner categories in use globally, but some airports are now also using infra-red thermal conductivity body scanners as a supplemental solution to identify people with elevated temperatures, as well as hidden objects.

Infra-red scanners don’t use electromagnetic radiation but instead use temperature differences on a surface to detect the objects and measure the thermal energy, or heat, emitted by a person. By flagging potentially ill individuals who have a fever, this technology became more widely adopted in some countries during the COVID pandemic when airport staff needed to quickly identify anyone spreading infection within the airport, but according to industry experts, they are not likely to replace the other two categories of scanner at airports anytime soon.

Notably, North America and Europe have largely discontinued use of backscatter x-ray units at their airports in favor of millimeter wave scanners that offer the very latest advanced imaging technology. In fact, the TSA currently has approved only two millimeter wave AIT airport scanner providers for all U.S. airports to meet its congressionally mandated automated threat detection requirements: Leidos and Rohde & Schwarz.

Scanning Solutions on the Horizon

Leidos’ flagship millimeter wave body scanner, Pro:Vision, was first in the industry over 20 years ago, and they currently have over 2,600 systems deployed worldwide.

“Airports choose Pro:Vision because of its high threat detection capabilities, low false alarm rates, image-free scanning, small footprint, ease-of-use for both passengers and operators, and TSA and EU ECAC (European Civil Aviation Conference) certifications,” said Brad Buswell, senior vice president and operations manager at Leidos. “Our systems support high throughput needs, up to 300 passengers per hour, per system.”

In February 2023, Leidos announced the TSA awarded it a contract to upgrade the agency’s full fleet of Pro:Vision AIT systems used at airport checkpoints with a new AI-based algorithm. This upgrade will impact more than 1,000 Pro:Vision AIT systems across the U.S. and help strengthen U.S. airport security with an improved threat detection methodology that will significantly reduce false alarms, which lead to unnecessary pat-downs and checkpoint inefficiencies.

Known as the Pro:Vision 3, Leidos’ new system will be commercially released this summer. “The Pro:Vision 3 has a new antenna design, improved radio frequency boards and deep-learning AI-based algorithms to increase threat detection, reduce processing time and achieve throughput rates above 400 people per hour, per system,” Buswell said, noting the upgraded system also will give passengers a more comfortable arms-down pose during the fast-screening process.

Rohde & Schwarz’s R&S QPS201 AIT system achieved TSA Qualified Products List status for the first time in mid-2022, having already been approved for use by ECAC. Currently, QPS201 passenger screening machines are being used in several U.S. international airports, including Denver (DEN), LaGuardia (LGA) and Las Vegas McCarran (LAS). Outside the U.S., more than 1,000 QPS201 units are deployed in more than 100 of the world’s busiest airports.

“The unique design and servicing capability enable several feet in reduced lane space required for passenger screening,” said Luke Olsen, business development manager for emerging technologies at Rohde & Schwarz, of the QPS201. “Faster scanning and processing speed, and lower false alarm rate enables substantial increase in footfall traffic in on-person body scanning.” The QPS201 is also wide enough to meet ADA requirements, enabling the elimination of the need for an additional ADA gate for each lane, he said.

Additionally, Rohde & Schwarz’s R&S QPS Walk2000 has recently been introduced to the North American market as a walk-through body scanning solution that allows airport staff to keep their shoes, jackets, outer coats, and hats on while walking at a normal pace through the system. The machine is capable of finding items that would not be found by a metal detector, while reducing the delays of employees performing daily job functions, according to the company.

“Both our R&S QPS201 and R&S QPS Walk2000 technologies are based on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and deep learning detection algorithms to allow them to be trained and tailored to meet the specific and emerging threat needs of our customers,” Olsen said.

Meeting Today’s Security Challenges

North American and European airports are using these millimeter wave scanners with advanced imaging technology to address many security challenges – some evergreen and others more specific to our current moment as the airline travel industry continues to emerge from the pandemic.

For example, like many industries worldwide, one of the biggest challenges facing the airport security sector today is hiring qualified professionals to ensure adequate staffing levels after several years of layoffs, retirements caused by generational turnover and other employment disruptions.

“Post-COVID, airports are struggling to re-hire and retain security operators,” said Buswell. “To uphold security screening processes with low staff numbers, airports are seeking automated body scanning technologies to reduce manual intervention at checkpoints. This keeps passenger throughput high while maximizing the security posture.”

Olsen likewise notes that a pressing challenge for airport security is to increase passenger capacity and throughput to meet the predicted growth in air travel in the coming years. “This goes hand-in-hand with a reduction in divestment requirements for passengers, including the ability to keep shoes, coats and belts on to reduce re-composure time after being screened,” he said.

Travelers also have higher expectations than ever before for the passenger experience, and for how digital solutions can be used to support it.

The latest millimeter wave body scanners now feature intelligent technology designed to deliver faster scans and more accurate results, leading to fewer physical pat-downs, so airport security needs are met and the passenger experience feels less invasive overall. Scanners are also moving to a more comfortable hands-down pose during the scanning process, with the QPS201 already offering that feature, and Pro:Vision adding it soon.

Because airports are continually challenged with emerging threats, it’s vital that they have body scanner technologies that can evolve and scale as needs change, Buswell said. “Systems that leverage AI and ML methodologies, with regular algorithm and software updates, are best suited to this challenge.”

Leidos’ latest Pro:Vision body scanner uses AI and ML techniques “to provide higher detection while also reducing the false positives,” Buswell said. “For the traveling public, this has reduced the wait time at security checkpoints and the number of pat-downs, while also improving the security of our transportation systems.”

Additionally, “body scanners must provide the highest level of threat detection, support high-throughput rates, be easy to operate, and non-intrusive for passengers,” Buswell said. “When any of these attributes are missed, the impact to a security checkpoint can be detrimental, resulting in a poor experience for travelers.”

A promising advancement in body scanning technology is the ability to have gender-neutral algorithms, a feature of Rohde & Schwarz’s R&S QPS201 passenger screening system. The company designed the system’s detection algorithm so that it doesn’t distinguish between anatomical differences of different genders, Olsen said.

In situations where a person’s physical anatomy doesn’t match their outward appearance, a security challenge has been to develop body scanning software capable of scanning those people accurately and minimizing false alarms. “The transgender community has had a horrific experience going through airport security for the last many years because of the way software was designed,” said Olsen, noting that many passengers in those situations have felt discriminated against when being singled out by the machines.

However, for the newest generation of body scanners, “one of the great things about machine learning is that we can train the software to understand that humans can have different physical features based on height, weight, gender, or other characteristics, so the system learns to never use those as discriminating factors in terms of how it detects explosives and guns,” Olsen said.

Olson said near-term and ongoing enhancements to AI and ML algorithms are also improving the screening process by allowing passengers to keep their religious and cultural dress and headwear on, as well as jackets, belts, and most types of shoes, and achieving the goal of reducing alarm rates for these clothing items.

The R&S QPS201 system is Rohde & Schwarz’s third generation system, a phased array scanner capable of gathering a large amount of data with each scan that results in higher definition images than ever before. High image quality is important when using intelligent algorithms, Olsen said, because “having a better image means that the system can more effectively identify and detect potential threats.”

Evolving

As new weapons evolve over time, the scanning software can be taught to recognize new types of physical objects potentially being carried by passengers by adding new scans to the existing library of images, which helps it quickly develop an understanding of new threats.

Looking ahead, body scanners will likely be doing more with integration of third-party provider solutions. For example, Rohde & Schwarz is engaged with global regulators on open-architecture algorithms to enable the hosting of third-party enhanced detection algorithms to operate on qualified platforms. “This enables the power of industry to continue to improve platform detection without compromising the baseline qualified product performance,” Olsen said.

“We’re at the beginning of a golden age of AI. Recent advancements have already led to invention that previously lived in the realm of science fiction — and
we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible.”
— Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and executive chairman

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the domain of aviation security (AvSec) is
growing but it is currently still limited. In this feature on AI in AvSec we have reached
out to industry experts for an update on the implementation of AI in AvSec, its threats and the necessary precautions, as well as a look into future applications.

Growing Use and Limited Applications

Richard Mayne, lead data scientist at Osprey Flight Solutions, affirms that the use of AI is growing in the AvSec field but is still limited in application. “Machine learning particularly is used across the screening and scanning functions, applying biometric identification capabilities, improving detection of unauthorized objects in baggage and other related activities,” he says.

As to the extent and the applications of AI in AvSec currently, Andrew Cox, an R&D systems analyst at Sandia National Laboratories, observes that the U.S. Transport Security Administration (TSA) uses machine learning algorithms specializing in object-detection for threat-detection in baggage, on-person screening, as well as identity verification systems.

Indeed, there is still a way to go to realize the power that AI can bring to keeping the aviation sector safe and secure, according to Mayne. “And there is a fundamental gap, an area in which AI is enabling game-changing capabilities, but for which the takeup in aviation is relatively small,” he affirms. “Understanding the risks the system faces, monitoring those risks and making efficient operational decisions that are accurately informed by broad spectrum and highly specific data sets is a far more critical function.”

Risk management is what would accurately judge the need for specific controls or mitigation measures, such as improved scanning and identity detection capabilities, observes Mayne. “The industry is gradually adapting to using AI, predominantly for optimizing the process of gathering, cleaning and structuring open-source data, in efforts to reduce the monetary and time investment required for this most fundamental of processes,” he says. “As a forerunner in applying data science techniques to the AvSec industry, we believe that such applications only scratch the surface of what is possible and do not yet offer any meaningful analysis. More specifically, in addition to simply improving workflow efficiencies, AI has the potential to offer advanced pattern identification, identification of new metrics for risk, forecasting of adverse events and behavioral analysis of key actors, to name but a few of the applications that the industry could benefit from.”

Threats and Precautions

The implementation of AI in AvSec comes with some unique challenges; there are some threats potentially stemming from an improper use of AI in AvSec, which require some precautions to be applied.

Cox affirms that there is a wide variety of challenges that can come from applications of AI, and the best ways to manage those challenges are with a careful and comprehensive data collection, curation and an algorithm testing regime specifically designed to discover and correct for any flaws. “One of the advantages of TSA’s open architecture approach is that it can more easily monitor the performance of algorithms to catch potential challenges before they become operational challenges,” he says.

It is partially due to the perceived threat of improper use that the industry has not adapted AI more wholeheartedly, according to Mayne. “It is true that it takes significant investment to convert abstruse mathematical computing techniques into a scientifically validated product that risk management professionals can begin to put faith in; indeed, media coverage of the AI field has been almost universally negative in recent years, which only exacerbates this issue. The level of risk implied in using AI specifically for enhancing AvSec analysis is often conflated with societal and ethical considerations which are not necessarily relevant,” he says.

One should not assume that there is no risk, but perhaps it is best to consider improper use of AI in this context to be roughly equivalent to inept handling of conventional statistics, points out Mayne. “A badly implemented machine or deep learning model may be as dangerous as manipulating a crucial statistic when the insights gathered therein are used to inform policies on which lives depend,” he says. “It is our opinion, however, that with a full understanding that AI may only do one of two basic things (predict or classify), and that the analytical outputs therein are produced by potentially fallible models, the potential for miscalculation is dramatically reduced.”

Future Applications

As to the future applications of AI in AvSec as AI evolves the time window that is to be expected before future applications are deployed, Cox points out that the most important application of AI is threat object detection algorithms for baggage and on-person screening. “While the TSA has already implemented such algorithms, as the TSA transitions to an open architecture technology strategy, it will more easily and rapidly update those algorithms to perform more effectively,” he says.

According to Mayne, the application of AI to the fundamental requirements of risk management (identifying, analyzing and monitoring risk) offers a huge step forward for the AvSec industry. “One can have the most advanced baggage screening capability in the world, but if the risk of someone carrying illicit or illegal goods using this method is vanishingly small, the expense and resource required to implement and manage such capabilities is not worth it,” he says. “Such a wealth of open-source data is now available that advanced analytical techniques are not only possible, but are also more feasible than more conventional, statistical techniques.”

As the scale of the available data becomes truly ‘big’, conventional techniques used for cleaning data, generating statistics and syntheses based upon those, be they manual or otherwise, will gradually be phased out in favor of AI techniques which are truly scalable, affirms Mayne. “Examples of such activities from our offerings include anomaly detection for early reporting, automated risk scoring and generation of machine-written reports. The transformation has begun, but we predict that the next five years will be a crucial milestone in the mass acceptance of these technologies,” he concludes.