Development of a Fuzzy Expert System for Aviation Risk Modeling

The Flight Operations Risk Assessment System (FORAS) is a risk modeling methodology which represents risk factors and their interrelationships as a fuzzy expert system. The FORAS process systematizes the process of eliciting human expertise, provides for a natural representation of the knowledge in an expert system, and automates the process of risk assessment.

There are many challenges in developing such a system. These include the selection of relevant subject matter experts, the combination and reconciliation of multiple, subjective knowledge bases, and the representation of knowledge in a model easily expressed, evaluated, and revised. This paper will present the technical background of the FORAS methodology, and demonstrate its implementation, as performed on its first operational partner, EVA Airways, of Taiwan.