Onboard aircraft system with artificial human interface to assist passengers and/or crew members

A user assistance system onboard an aircraft, the system comprising:

• a plurality of proximity sensors configured to detect presence of users within one of a plurality of areas of the aircraft, where the plurality of areas includes at least one cabin area and at least one galley area;
• a display monitor located within one of the plurality of areas;
• at least one processor;
• and
• at least one processor-readable medium associated with the at least one processor, the at least one processor-readable medium storing processor-executable instructions configurable to be executed by the at least one processor to perform an automated method of controlling a component onboard the aircraft, the method comprising:
• providing user-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for members of a flight crew and user-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for passengers, where the user-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for members of the flight crew include at least one different action from the user-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for the passengers;
• providing area-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for users in each of a plurality of areas of the aircraft, where the area-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for users in the at least one galley area include at least one different action from the area-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for users in the at least one cabin area;
• detecting a presence of a user within one of the plurality of areas of the aircraft, wherein the detecting is based on output of one of the plurality of proximity sensors;
• determining if the detected presence of the user corresponds to a member of the flight crew or a passenger;
• in response to the detecting, causing display of an animated digital representation of an assistant on the display monitor;
• controlling the animated digital representation of the assistant to react to speech input;
• processing speech input of the user with a natural language processing engine to identify at least one action in a selected one of the user-specific libraries of actions and the area-specific libraries of actions to be carried out onboard the aircraft, where the selected one of the user-specific libraries of actions and the area-specific libraries of actions corresponds to the user being a member of the flight crew or being a passenger and/or to the user being in the at least one cabin area or in the at least one galley area;
• controlling the animated digital representation of the assistant to respond to the identified at least one action in the selected one of the user-specific libraries of actions and the area-specific libraries of actions;
• and
• issuing at least one command, instruction, or control signal to the component onboard the aircraft, to initiate the identified at least one action in the selected one of the user-specific library of actions and the area-specific libraries of actions.

At least one non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having executable instructions stored thereon, the instructions configurable to cause at least one processor onboard an aircraft to perform an automated method of controlling a component onboard the aircraft, the method comprising:

• providing user-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for members of a flight crew and user-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for passengers, where the user-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for members of the flight crew include at least one different action from the user-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for the passengers;
• providing area-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for users in each of a plurality of areas of the aircraft, where the plurality of areas includes at least one cabin area and at least one galley area, where the area-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for users in the at least one galley area include at least one different action from the area-specific libraries of actions that can be performed for users in the at least one cabin area;
• detecting presence of a user within one of the plurality of areas of the aircraft supported by a display monitor, wherein the detecting is based on output of a proximity sensor;
• determining if the detected presence of the user corresponds to a member of the flight crew or a passenger;
• in response to the detecting, causing display of an animated digital representation of an assistant on the display monitor;
• controlling the animated digital representation of the assistant to react to speech input;
• processing speech input of the user with a natural language processing engine to identify at least one action in a selected one of the user-specific libraries of actions and the area-specific libraries of actions to be carried out onboard the aircraft, where the selected one of the user-specific libraries of actions and the area-specific libraries of actions corresponds to the user being a member of the flight crew or being a passenger and/or to the user being in the at least one cabin area or in the at least one galley area;
• controlling the animated digital representation of the assistant to respond to the identified at least one action in the selected one of the user-specific libraries of actions and the area-specific libraries of actions;
• and
• issuing at least one command, instruction, or control signal to the component onboard the aircraft, to initiate the identified at least one action in the selected one of the user-specific library of actions and the area-specific libraries of actions.