Using information management to integrate smart vehicle subsystems

There are many subsystems on-board the modern military aircraft to provide enhanced capability and to enable the pilot to better perform his mission. Unfortunately, most of these subsystems each require some management by the pilot in the form of monitoring gauges, displays or indicators. As a result, pilot workload often increases since the pilot must monitor the health of his vehicle in addition to performing his mission. But the pilot should be focused on his mission, not on the aircraft itself. There are simply too many potential distractions from vehicle status indicators and gauges. Vehicle management systems need to be developed to provide more autonomy in the management of aircraft subsystems. Furthermore, when a subsystem does fail, it is left to the pilot to determine both how the failure will affect other subsystems and more importantly, how the failure will affect his ability to carry out his mission. This paper addresses the issue of how to reduce the pilot's management of aircraft subsystems by developing an integrated vehicle manager that relies on various smart subsystems technologies.