The creation of new research directions through collaboration between disciplines

In 2004 the Knowledge-based Intelligent Engineering Systems (KES) Centre and the Aviation Education, Research and Operations (AERO) Laboratory formally agreed to collaborate on a number of aviation safety related projects. This collaboration has been important, and highly advantageous, in the identification of aviation safety related problems and their potential AI/CI based solutions. The collaboration has led to the development of a small group of seven researchers, including four PhD students. This will expand to eight PhD students from the end of 2009. This paper will describe the aviation safety projects that have arisen out of this collaboration.