TABLE OF CONTENTS We ended the preceding chapter with some thoughts on automation in the context of modern aviation weather surveillance systems. We continue with that theme in a concrete way in this chapter. Modern technological advancement has provided us with not only sensitive instruments for observing nature, but also powerful data handling and computing devices and matching software to mimic or substitute many of the intelligent functions hitherto performed only by human beings. Aviation weather surveillance, by its very nature (of being observation-, data- and inter-pretation-intensive, and quasi-real-time), is an area that can benefit immensely from all these strengths of modern technology. In particular, the high levels of physical understanding of weather phenomena currently available, coupled with algorithmic and software expertise, make it possible to automate many intelligence-requiring functions such as detection, recognition, tracking, prediction, and impact or hazard potential assessment of aviation-significant weather phenomena.
Traditionally, sensing instruments have been used to generate atmospheric data which, if necessary after a certain amount of preprocessing, are presented to meteorologists for interpretation. The meteorologist, after viewing the weather scene, e.g. a radar display of reflectivity, can recognise tell-tale patterns in the field that correspond to specific types of weather phenomena which may be of concern to aviation. Although computers have not yet caught up with the trained human being in terms of versatility and overall cognitive abilities, it is possible to impart to machines the ability to recognise a limited set of phenomena in a field of suitably prepared data. If performed...
