Intent Inference

Intent

• The goal of pilot (human) or automation (machine) is pursuing

• Abstractly describes the complex behavior of the pilot or the automation

• Intents are typically not directly available and unknown a priori

=> Intent Inference: the problem of extracting intent information from the available information (e.g., measurements, flight plans, models)

• If intent information is available via advanced data communication, the intent inference can be used as a conformance monitoring tool to ensure the reliability of reported intents

Intent Models

• The set of possible aircraft intents could have infinitely many elements.

• However, these intents are constrained by flight plans and ATC’s regulations

=> The aircraft intents can be modeled as a finite set of intent models

Intent Inference

• can be posed as a maximum likelihood inference problem

• Example in the horizontal dimension

Applications of Intent Inference

• Aircraft intent inference with applications to:

  • Aircraft trajectory prediction

  • Probabilistic conflict detection

  • Aircraft maneuver identification

• Pilot-automation mode confusion detection

  • Model-based method

  • Formal verification

  • Learning-based method