System-of-systems integration of air-ground telecommunications with the software connector

Component-based software development has come up with the new paradigm for the interconnection of software components-the Connector. It would be useful to discuss whether this new software technology can be applied for the aeronautical world and which benefits would derive from it. The discussion will be held from the perspective of Air Traffic Management, and herein from the domain of air-ground integration as example. The paper gives an overview of the status of the different historical, current and future air-ground technologies. It formulates the reasons for the approach to integrate the different and co-existing technologies, and explains the integration problem. Further it shows historical effort conducted in the EEC to overcome the shortfalls mainly of ATN(Aeronautical Telecommunications Network) integration, and presents some of the early solutions for improvements. The following sections introduce to the concepts of Connector, and finally the discussion is on the applicability of the Connector concept to the aeronautical world. The discussion will structure the functions of the Connector and produce a layered architectural model for the air-ground Connector.