La Trobe University research helps upgrade air traffic control

A La Trobe University research group has won a contract from Airservices Australia to help upgrade ground and airborne information services for air traffic control and related services to the aviation industry.

The XML Research Group, in the Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, is led by chief research investigators Associate Professor Wenny Rahayu and Dr Torab Torabi, and involves software engineering advisor, Associate Professor Karl Reed, who negotiated the contract.

 This collaboration will provide research support as the government-owned corporation moves to a new, XML-based Aeronautical Information Exchange Model standard.

The primary object of the research is the application of these standards to the exchange of aeronautical information services and other data between ground services and airborne digital applications.

This two-year project involves substantial participation by Airservices staff and contributions of hardware and software. It will analyse and design data exchange for an ‘Electronic Flight Bag’ being developed by Airservices and its associates. 

XML – ‘Extensible Markup Language’ – is used to help information systems share structured data while retaining flexibility for other stakeholders to define their own services.

Detail information can be found from AIXM Airservices-LTU Web Site

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.