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Respect-IT contributes to the improvement of air transportation security
Respect-IT requirements engineering methodology and Objectiver technology are used by several of the main players within the European aerospace industry to contribute to a major cooperative effort aiming at improving air transportation security.The European project is known as SAFEE.
Respect-IT SA has signed a partnership agreement with 31 European aerospace companies and organizations to help develop a new generation of on-board security systems. The consortium includes several of the most important industry players, such as Sagem, EADS, Airbus Industries, British Aerospace, Thalès, … , together with renowned research centers such as ONERA in France and NLR in the Netherlands. Respect-IT is the sole Belgian participant to the project, which is named SAFEE (Security of Aircraft in the Future European Environment). This project is supported in part by the European Union within the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. It will mobilize some of the best European security experts for a four year long intensive work programme. The project’s main purpose is to increase the public’s confidence in the aerospace industry by providing an advanced airplane security system designed to prevent any type of terrorist threat occurring during flight.
Many different types of on-board detecting devices will be included: the system will propose various courses of action depending on the threat level, ranging from manual procedures to be executed by the crew to fully automated procedures which will land the aircraft safely.
The design of such a complex system needs to rely on a perfectly sound basis. Respect-IT methodology will be used to formulate and engineer the requirements for the heart of SAFEE, the expert system which will evaluate threat levels and propose corrective actions. The methodology was also chosen for its ability to provide efficient and unambiguous communication means between the members of the consortium. Respect-IT contribution to the project goes far beyond the methodology to be used by the consortium : Objectiver, a software package developed by the company with the support of the Walloon Region of Belgium, will be used by the project participants to build and refine SAFEE’s underlying models and derive several essential results from these models automatically.The selection of Respect-IT as a partner within the
project by the European aerospace industry confirms the high level of
expertise
and the advanced competencies of the company in a highly strategic area
for the
future of the world’s economy.