Ontology-based CNS software development

The heart of Air Traffic Control (ATC) lays in the Control Room (CR) in the ATC en route center, Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), and ATC Tower (ATCT) facilities. However, CRs are also used in other mission critical domains such as 911, or Emergency control centers. In the past this led to the development of domain specific control rooms resulting in different solutions for each specific environment. This raises the cost for efficient software development and increases the time-to-market. A modern Ontology-Based Control Room Framework (ONTOCOR) could dramatically improve this Air Traffic Management (ATM) situation. Uniform and open standards build up ontologies described by the Web Ontology Language (OWL). Information Management (IM) and the development of uniform and open standards are key components of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) and Europe´s SESAR Program. ONTOCOR increases productive code usage and reduces software development. It focuses on improving efficiency and gain effort by code reusability, thus contributing to reduction of deployment cost of such solutions. This paper analyzes and compares different ontology languages as well as relevant semantic tools for ontology development and management. The present paper will also give a brief survey on ontology-based software engineering, before the ongoing research of ONTOCOR is introduced.