C++ and XML...

[Kit Plummer]

Hello folks.

Over the past year or so myself and a couple other people have been
pondering a project.  To this date we haven't really progressed beyond
the decision that we would like to move forward.  But, anyway I am
curious if anyone here would be interested in listening to the core
concept and providing a little feedback...

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The executive summary:  The project CoPilot was initiated in response to
all the routine checklists involved in flying an aircraft, wether it be
your basic two-seater or a commercial airliner.  (The technical term for
cockpit operations is Cockpit Resource Management, or CRM.)  Many
general aviation, pilot-induced accidents, are caused by a pilot's
inability to manage an emergency situations (JKF Jr.).  The objective of
the project is to voice-automate some of the many sequential checklists
and especially the emergency checklists - ultimately, providing an
in-cockpit expert system.

Enter CoPilot, a small black box which sits inline with the cockpit
communication system.  The software runs waiting for an audible command
triggering the automated system.  Once into the system you be directed
through a simple, pre-defined menu to a checklist.  

For example I will provide a simple flow here:

Pilot: "computer"
CoPilot: "welcome to copilot"
	Pilot: "preflight"
	CoPilot: "preflight checklist"
		Pilot: "begin"
		CoPilot: "AROW documents"
		Pilot: "check"
		CoPilot: "power on"
		Pilot: "check"
		CoPilot: "flaps down"
		Pilot: "check"
		...
		...
		CoPilot: "preflight complete"
		Pilot: "check"

Right now, we are looking to build a simple prototype which runs of a
laptop.  The dev environment of choice is C++ using XML as the datastore
as this will be easily embeddable at a later date.  

Our first step is to read the XML file containing a checklist for a
particular aircraft.  Once we have done that then we will simulate the
menu using simple cout and cin functions which can be easily replaced
with a vout or vin (v as in voice) at a later date.

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Any feedback?  BTW: This is a personal project, and isn't corporate
(yet).

Cheers,

Kit