The Cockpit Control Language Program: An Update: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the CDU

The Cockpit Control Language (CCL) is a pilot-centered interaction concept for the autoflight system that any pilot can learn to use in about fifteen minutes. This ease of learning and use is made possible by the fact that CCL uses existing pilot knowledge about operating the aircraft as the basis for the interaction logic. Therefore, the pilot does not have to learn new operating logic for the flight management system, autopilot, or modes management. Over the past three years, we have moved from a non-functioning, conceptual user interface prototype to a functioning development platform, complete with a constrained natural language parser, graphical user interface, and redesigned Control/Display Unit (CDU) optimized for CCL inputs. In this paper, we describe the elements of our development platform.