In-flight performance assistant

Abstract

Nowadays, during in-flight emergency, pilots have to decide a handling action base on the aircraft’s performance data. These data are essential and important for making the correct handling decision to save all passengers life. However, most of these data are still retrieved from manual table and calculated by pilots manually, in which data inaccuracy may occur due to human error and calculation error. Therefore, in this project, a handheld application with a decision making intelligence system is proposed and developed to provide a more reliable and accurate solution to pilots. Apart from building the intelligence system, a Generic Object-Oriented Expert System Shell (GOOESS) is also developed in this project, which is a shell for constructing expert systems with rule-base reasoning approach. Via developing the GOOESS, the design and structure of object-oriented modular expert system shell is investigated and the GOOESS is built with reference to the investigated design. With the help of the database design, the expert system created by the GOOESS is object-oriented, generic and flexible for further modification. Changes of production rules are only required to make to the corresponding database table instead of the expert system logic. That means no change is required to be made on the expert system. The handheld application, called In-flight Performance Assistant (IFPA), stores the inflight performance data and contains a production system. The production system is the main component of the IFPA, which is for determining and advising pilots the most appropriate handling action base on their input under different emergency situations. The production system is built by using the GOOESS developed, embedding the in-flight operation knowledge in form of IF-THEN rules. Since most of the in-flight data is stored in and is calculated by the IFPA, therefore, the decision making time and the chance for error to occur is minimized. At the same time, data accuracy and calculation accuracy is preserved. With the IFPA, pilots can have a reliable, accurate and efficient way to make decision under emergency situation.