Enabling air-ground integration: definition of a total information sharing protocol

It would be useful to define a generic protocol for information sharing on the air-ground link, so that the flight deck could access information services in a standardized, compatible and interoperable way around the world. Such a protocol, here called a total information sharing protocol (TISP), is defined in this paper. The usefulness of TISP derives from the concept definition of traffic information services in contract (TIS-C) mode according to R. Ehrmanntraut et al. (2003), which itself is justified in R. Ehrmanntraut (2002) with the introduction of TIS-C in the operational concepts airborne separation assurance system (ASAS) and controller-pilot datalink communications (CPDLC), and their need for pilot situational awareness. The paper gives an introduction to the concept of TIS-C and discusses the need for TISP, which is its underlying generic protocol. A definition of total information sharing protocol (TISP) is given. The total information sharing protocol is a generic software protocol in client-server software architectures. TISP customizes the client-server protocol for mobile consumers and for safety-critical applications. It is conceived to operate in an environment of service providers, and free choice of services for the service consumer. Therefore special attention has been put on the discovery of service providers, the negotiation of contacts between service providers and service consumer, and a pre-negotiated seamless hand-over between service providers. In addition the notion of third parties has been introduced so that contracts can be negotiated on behalf of a party, e.g. an airline negotiating a company contract for all of its aircraft, or ATC imposing standard contracts for all aircraft and service providers. All these features are presented. TISP is composed of a set of protocol patterns that a