Diverter Decision Aiding for In-Flight Diversions

It was determined that artificial intelligence technology can provide pilots with the help they need in making the complex decisions concerning en route changes in a flight plan. A diverter system should have the capability to take all of the available information and produce a recommendation to the pilot. Phase three illustrated that using Joshua to develop rules for an expert system and a Statice database provided additional flexibility by permitting the development of dynamic weighting of diversion relevant parameters. This increases the fidelity of the AI functions cited as useful in aiding the pilot to perform situational assessment, navigation rerouting, flight planning/replanning, and maneuver execution. Additionally, a prototype pilot-vehicle interface (PVI) was designed providing for the integration of both text and graphical based information. Advanced technologies were applied to PVI design, resulting in a hierarchical menu based architecture to increase the efficiency of information transfer while reducing expected workload. Additional efficiency was gained by integrating spatial and text displays into an integrated user interface.