Semantics-Based Summarization of ATM Data to Manage Information Overload in Pilot Briefings

Pilot briefings, in their traditional form, drown pilots in a sea of information. Rather than unfocused swathes of air traffic management (ATM) information, pilots require only the information for their specific flight. In this paper, we introduce the notion of ATM information cubes. We propose a conceptual framework with merge and abstraction operations for the combination and summarization of the information that is organized in ATM information cubes. A merge operation combines ATMinformation from individual cells of an ATM information cube. An abstraction operation summarizes the data items within a cell, replacing individual data items by more abstract data items with summary information. The result is a Management summary of relevant information.