Development of an expert system: Translating higher-level decisions into lower-level aircraft flights

This note describes two phases in the development of an expert system that translates European-wide directives into individual flight orders. This expert system was built for a military computer simulation, but parts of the logic can apply-and many of the illustrations in the text have been tailored-to creating and organizing commercial flights. The first phase of the develoment-a proof of principle expert system-emulated the logical deductions of an air traffic control supervisor or a flight planner. The second phase of development led to a working prototype decision support system that employed more mathematical comparisons of aircraft attributes than logical deductions.