Eye in the sky
Helping upgrade Aeronautical Services Data
Dr Rahayu, centre, flanked by Airservices’ Manager for Planning and Integration, Darryl Woods, right, and La Trobe Acting Dean of Science, Technology & Engineering, Dr Mark Sandeman. Others, from far left, are Dr Rusu, La Trobe’s Karl Reed and Dr Torabi; Airservices’ Pierre Truter and Design and Data Analyst, Andrew Taylor-Harris, right.
La Trobe University researchers have won a $430,000 contract from Airservices Australia to evaluate the evolving Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) standard for Airservices’ future systems.
The research, being carried out in conjunction with Airservices, will also investigate another group of standards and their deployment in the aviation environment.
These sets of standards have been adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization for managing information essential for aeronautical services, including air traffic control, says La Trobe Associate Professor Wenny Rahayu. Some standards are currently going through a fifth revision.
The results of the research will help to define the scope and risks in implementing AIXM and related standards in Australia and the deployment of data to embedded systems.
The project will be carried out by La Trobe University’s Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering XML Research Group, led by chief investigators Dr Rahayu and her colleague, Dr Torab Torabi. It also involves software engineering advisor Associate Professor Karl Reed. (XML stands for ‘Extensible Markup Language’.)
Mr Pierre Truter, Manager ICT Planning of Airservices Australia, says the collaboration will provide research support as the government-owned corporation moves to the new, XML based Aeronautical Information Exchange Model standard.
‘As information-sharing between contracting countries becomes more automated, these standards will become critical to sharing safe and cost-effective provision of aviation data,’ Mr Truter said. ‘A dual evaluation of these standards is being done, evaluating both the standards themselves, and the issues associated withembedding these standards within aeronautical services provider organisations, emphasising safety, organisational adoption and quality of client interaction.’
Two year project
The two-year project involves substantial participation by Airservices staff and contributions of hardware and software. It will include analysis of the standards and converting current operational data to the new standards, and the automated data exchange to an ‘Electronic Flight Bag’ developed by Bob Pascoe, a pilot and former Head of Information Technology at Charles Darwin University.
Dr Rahayu says the La Trobe XML Research Group is one of Australia’s leading centres of expertise in XML, Knowledge Engineering and database systems. The University has appointed an ‘Airservices Australia Postdoctoral Fellow’, Dr Laura Rusu. The group also includes a number of academic staff , research students and a domain expert from Airservices Australia.
Airservices Australia manages air traffic over eleven per cent of the world’s surface, for some 63 million passengers on more than four million domestic and international flights annually.
The aviation industry also relies on the corporation for aeronautical data, telecommunications, navigation, aviation rescue and fire fighting services.