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Diploma/Master's Thesis in Computer Science
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Supervisor: Dr. Stephan Schulz, stephan.schulz@comsoft.de
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Dr. Marina Müller, marina.mueller@comsoft.de
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"An Explicit Rule Language to Express Safety Constraints for
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Minimum Safe Altitude and Area Proximity Warnings"
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Safety Net applications are computer programs that monitor the air
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situation based on data from sensors (radars, multilateration, ADS-B)
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or, more often, tracker systems that integrate data from sensors over
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time. These programs try to predict critical situations and alarm ATC
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controllers ahead of time. Examples include Short Term Conflict Alert
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(STCA) systems, Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) systems, and Area
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Proximity Warning (APW) systems. STCA systems predict the flight paths
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of different aircraft and issue a warning up to two minutes ahead of a
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potential separation violation. MSAW and APW systems predict single
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aircraft trajectories and issue a warning if there is a significant
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risk that the aircraft comes too close to a terrain feature,
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obstacle, or prohibited region.
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While the basic trajectory prediction is always based on the same
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principles, the generation of warning messages is highly dependent on
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local conditions. The quality of the sensor coverage dictates aircraft
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separation rules. Local geography may require trajectories that would
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normally be avoided. Availability of flight plan information can help
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to recognize potentially dangerous situations as already anticipated
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and under control. As an example, if a flight plan contains a cleared
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altitude of 300 flight levels, the aircraft is expected to level off
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its ascent there, and hence will not conflict with an aircraft at an
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altitude of 320 flight levels, even if a naive projection based on the
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current rate of ascent does indicate a potential conflict.
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Currently, Safety Net systems use standard requirement engineering to
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identify the necessary conditions for each particular
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deployment. These requirements are then translated manually into
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program code. However, this process is tedious and error-prone, and
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the resulting code can be rather complex and hard to maintain. Each
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modification requires extensive re-validation of the software.
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The aim of this thesis is the development and implementation of a
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language that can express the necessary conflict for an ATC Safety Net
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in symbolic, human-readable form. Depending on the outcome of an
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initial feasibility study, the language should be either interpreted
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by the Safety Net System, or automatically compiled into C++ code.
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For this purpose, first the necessary attributes and relations have to
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to be identified. Then a proper rule semantics (prioritised, weighted,
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non-monotonic/exception-based...) has to be determined, and finally an
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initial prototype language needs to be designed and implemented.
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----
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Comsoft is a medium-sized, privately owned company located in
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Karlsruhe/Durlach. We continually offer interesting diploma topics,
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practicals, and internships in computer science, signal processing,
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electrical engineering, and related topics. For generic enquiries
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please contact human resources at waltraud.schweitzer@comsoft.de.
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