Applications of Decision-Support Systems in Sociotechnical Systems

In this chapter, the authors present conceptual models of decision support systems (DSS) and Expert systems (ES) for Human-Operator (H-O) of Air Navigation System (ANS), such as air traffic controller (ATC) in flight emergencies, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) operator, Safety Management System (SMS), etc. The authors made an analysis of the International civil aviation organization (ICAO) documents on risk assessment and the impact of the social environment on the aviation system. Automated system of pre-flight information preparation with intelligent module for support the decision making (DM) about aircraft departure are presented and program realization of systems are shown. The authors obtained algorithm of determining the optimal aerodrome for the forced landing of aircraft is provided. Expert systems of aviation enterprise's estimation were developed. Inhomogeneous factors of internal and external management environment of aviation enterprise were generalized using set-theoretical approach. This gave possibilities to define that the level of safety of aviation activity has the greatest influence among factors of internal environment and global economic situation – among factors of external environment. The authors demonstrate some interesting applications of DM in Socio-Technical Systems (STS). The DSS for H-O of ANS in the emergency situational were developed. Examples of DSS: DSS of ATC in the emergency situational; the flight dispatcher's DSS; DSS of UAV's operator, etc. In addition, the chapter presents some cases of DSS developed by the authors and colleagues at National Aviation University, Ukraine.