A Formal Description Technique for Interactive Cockpit Applications Compliant with ARINC Specification 661

The purpose of the ARINC specification 661 is to define interfaces to a cockpit display system (CDS) targeting new aircraft installations. ARINC 661 provides precise information for communication protocols between application and user interface components (called widgets) as well as precise information about the widgets themselves. However, no information is given on the behavior of these widgets and on the behavior of an application made up of a set of such widgets. This paper presents a formal description technique called interactive cooperative objects to define in a precise and non-ambiguous way such behaviors. This description technique also defines the relationships between the behavioral description and the user interface. We show the benefits of such a notation for the specification of interactive cockpit applications and we introduce each modeling concept on a small example.