AIRCRAFT WARNING SYSTEMS - APPLICATION OF MODEL-BASED REASONING TECHNIQUES

The warning systems fitted to the current generation of civil air tran sport aircraft represent a significant advance on earlier technologies . One important outcome of this development has been the centralized a lerting and monitoring systems that present information directly to pi lots via multifunction displays. Despite these advances, there are sti ll areas where substantial improvements might be made on current syste ms. In this paper a brief review is provided of the design issues asso ciated with current aircraft warning systems, and the potential benefi ts of an 'intelligent' warning system are identified. This system woul d be capable of monitoring and interpreting data from aircraft systems and flight operational conditions, and in the event of failures and a bnormal conditions, would provide the crew with a high-level interpret ation of the malfunction. In addition, it would generate appropriate c rew actions and prediction of future trends. The use of a model-based reasoning approach to this task is outlined and discussed in relation to some specific aspects of interface design.