Universal Decoder for Airborne Generated Data

The Navy currently uses a variety of aviation data collectors to collect operational data that is analyzed to enable MFOQA and accident investigations. Many of these data collectors have a closed file format that changes periodically and cannot be decoded without OEM assistance. New research and development is required to create a tool capable of decoding these files without reliance on the OEM. We propose to research the feasibility of Intelligent Data File Interpretation (IDFI), a software technology and tool capable of identifying and decoding arbitrary binary files from aviation data collectors. Our proposed research focuses on the use of statistical analysis techniques to make inferences about the content of the file that would be difficult or impossible. In addition, we propose research into combining other techniques (heuristic analysis and human-aided decoding) with the statistical analysis research in order to create a file format decoder that is robust against changes in file formats or the introduction of new formats. The proposed IDFI software tool is capable of operating in user-assisted and in batch mode, is modular and capable of extension, and decodes input files to a variety of open file formats for easy analysis with existing tools.