Automated Real-Time Clearance Analyzer (ARCA)

The Automated Real-Time Clearance Analyzer (ARCA) automates safety assessment of ATC decisions and can operate orders of magnitude faster (and on a wider range of information) than a human. ARCA's core algorithms mirror human safety assessments so that decision analyses are comprehendible on inspection and can be calibrated with experience and observation. Furthermore, ARCA archives operational data as it operates in the field, giving it increasingly better information from which to learn and make increasingly more accurate safety assessments. ARCA uses a Bayesian network to determine the estimated probabilities of incidents and accidents. ARCA's operational safety assessments are objectively linked to hard data. As in any estimation (human or automated), there are always uncertainties. However, ARCA does not rely on any heuristics or subjective integration algorithms. The assessments it produces are objective and quantitatively defensible based on its growing archive of operational information. This is a highly desirable characteristic of trusted automation.