A qualitative modelling approach for the representation of trajctories: application to the analysis of flight patterns

Over the past few years a series of computational and semantic frameworks have been developed to model and represent the spatial and temporal properties of moving entities. Despite the interest of these contributions it is recognised that there is still a need for a qualitative reasoning support at the abstract and formal levels. The research presented in this paper introduces a qualitative approach for representing and manipulating moving entities. The model combines topological relations with qualitative distances over a spatial and temporal framework. Several basic movement configurations over dynamic entities are identified as well as movement transitions. The whole approach is illustrated in the context of the analysis of flight patterns