Moral autonomy in decision-making support from avionics analytics ontology

Abstract

Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management (UTM) are sophisticated, complex, and support a distributed and dynamic airspace for aviators and air traffic controllers (ATCs). A promising decision-making support approach for cutting-edge ATM/UTM systems is the use of Ontologies for NextGen Avionics Systems (ONAS). This paper discusses foundations for moral autonomy in command-guided self-governed aviation systems, and presents an Avionics Analytics Ontology (AAO) endowed with moral rules for decision-making support in avionics analytics. The AAO is a key element of a Decision-Support System (DSS). It is based on a set of semantic statements such as ontological assertions (e.g., “safeguard of human life must be always high-priority”) related to the right and wrong behavior from the DSS itself and detected air vehicles. The moral endowment ultimately enhances information fusion as to Situation Awareness (SAW) and situation assessment (SA). This paper presents a case study to demonstrate the use of moral semantics by means of two ATM/UTM operation scenarios: a commercial airplane emergency landing, and UAVs flying nearby commercial aircraft or airports. Experimental results from above application examples, concluding remarks, and future research directions are also presented.