Automatic reading of aeronautical meteorological messages

This paper describes the architecture developed to produce an automatic reader of aeronautical meteorological messages. An interlingua has been used and a whole process of natural language generation has been implemented. The system Festival has been used with a modified voice to read the messages generated. The presented system is able to translate the meteorological messages into a natural language text and read it

Automatic Reading of Aeronautical Meteorological Messages

This paper describes the architecture developed to produce an automatic reader of aeronautical meteorological messages. An interlingua has been used and a whole process of natural language generation has been implemented. The system Festival has been used with a modified voice to read the messages generated. The presented system is able to translate the meteorological messages into a natural language text and read it.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Assessment of cockpit interface concepts for data link retrofit

The problem is examined of retrofitting older generation aircraft with data link capability. The approach taken analyzes requirements for the cockpit interface, based on review of prior research and opinions obtained from subject matter experts. With this background, essential functions and constraints for a retrofit installation are defined. After an assessment of the technology available to meet the functions and constraints, candidate design concepts are developed. The most promising design concept is described in detail. Finally, needs for further research and development are identified

A simulator investigation of the use of digital data link for pilot/ATC communications in a single pilot operation

Studies have shown that radio communications between pilots and air traffic control contribute to high pilot workload and are subject to various errors. These errors result from congestion on the voice radio channel, and missed and misunderstood messages. The use of digital data link has been proposed as a means of reducing this workload and error rate. A critical factor, however, in determining the potential benefit of data link will be the interface between future data link systems and the operator of those systems, both in the air and on the ground. The purpose of this effort was to evaluate the pilot interface with various levels of data link capability, in simulated general aviation, single-pilot instrument flight rule operations. Results show that the data link reduced demands on pilots' short-term memory, reduced the number of communication transmissions, and permitted the pilots to more easily allocate time to critical cockpit tasks while receiving air traffic control messages. The pilots who participated unanimously indicated a preference for data link communications over voice-only communications. There were, however, situations in which the pilot preferred the use of voice communications, and the ability for pilots to delay processing the data link messages, during high workload events, caused delays in the acknowledgement of messages to air traffic control

Guidelines for the establishment of a search and rescue service

The main reason for embarking on this topic is the urgent necessity for establishing a Search and Rescue Service in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Many disasters have been caused by a minor accident such as electrical spark , or a match stick, hesitation in taking actions to avoid collisions, which result in loss of lives and property. To minimize such losses one must have a responsive Search and Rescue Service, which unfortunately is not properly established in the Kingdom. The area is congested with traffic without any search and rescue coverage by the Kingdom or even neighbouring countries, which should be available in all coastal states to render such services. This is part of the coastal states international obligation as stated in :- 1) The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1974 (SOLAS \u2774), Regulation 15 - Chapter V. 2) The UN Convention on the High Seas, 1958 - Article 12(2). 3) The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1978\u27 (UNCLOS III). Article 98 (2) refers to: Duty to render assistance. As I have discovered, carrying out research in this field was hard but my educational background and speciality as a technical person (Marine Engineer) have assisted greatly whilst conducting such a task. However, because of the importance and necessity of this topic for the Kingdom which oversees two strategic maritime zones (the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf) each as important as the other, and since the Kingdom is the leading country in the region in many aspects, she must obviously and automatically play the leading role and take the necessary steps to establish such a valuable and active service in the field of Search and Rescue . She should take into consideration her ability to conduct such a service after careful study and well established research nationally, regionally, and internationally. Therefore this study has chiefly been derived from information provided by states which have had considerable experience in the field of Search and Rescue, e.g. Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. The study and research was not limited to reading their publications. Field visits were made to most of them mainly: United States of America, the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as the host country of the World Maritime University - Sweden. Even though the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the means to establish a Search and Rescue Service with the latest techniques available, my study was based on providing practical and economical Search and Rescue coverage of the area

Compendium of Applications Technology Satellite user experiments

The achievements of the user experiments performed with ATS satellites from 1967 to 1973 are summarized. Included are fixed and mobile point to point communications experiments involving voice, teletype and facsimile transmissions. Particular emphasis is given to the Alaska and Hawaii satellite communications experiments. The use of the ATS satellites for ranging and position fixing of ships and aircraft is also covered. The structure and operating characteristics of the various ATS satellite are briefly described

Comparison of aircraft-derived observations with in situ research aircraft measurements

Mode Selective Enhanced Surveillance (Mode-S EHS) reports are aircraft-based observations that have value in numerical weather prediction (NWP). These reports contain the aircraft's state vector in terms of its speed, direction, altitude and Mach number. Using the state vector, meteorological observations of temperature and horizontal wind can be derived. However, Mode-S EHS processing reduces the precision of the state vector from 16-bit to 10-bit binary representation. We use full precision data from research grade instruments, on-board the United Kingdom's Facility for Atmospheric Airborne Measurements, to emulate Mode-S EHS reports and to compare with derived observations. We aim to understand the observation errors due to the reduced precision of Mode-S EHS reports. We derive error models to estimate these observation errors. The temperature error increases from 1.25 K to 2.5 K between an altitude of 10 km and the surface due to its dependency on Mach number and also Mode-S EHS precision. For the cases studied, the zonal wind error is around 0.50 ms− 1 and the meridional wind error is 0.25 ms− 1. The wind is also subject to systematic errors that are directionally dependent. We conclude that Mode-S EHS derived horizontal winds are suitable for data assimilation in high-resolution NWP. Temperature reports may be usable when aggregated from multiple aircraft. While these reduced precision, high frequency data provide useful, albeit noisy, observations; direct reports of the higher precision data would be preferable

Non-urban mobile radio market demand forecast

A national nonmetropolitan land mobile traffic model for 1990-2000 addresses user classes, density classes, traffic mix statistics, distance distribution, geographic distribution, price elasticity, and service quality elasticity. Traffic demands for business, special industrial, and police were determined on the basis of surveys in 73 randomly selected nonurban counties. The selected services represent 69% of total demand. The results were extrapolated to all services in the non-SMSA areas of the contiguous United States. Radiotelephone services were considered separately. Total non-SMSA mobile radio demand (one way) estimates are given. General functional requirements include: hand portability, privacy, reduction of blind spots, two way data transmission, position location, slow scan imagery