The Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) is designed to enable the management and distribution of Aeronautical Information Service

Aeronautical Information Service

One of the least known and most vital roles in support of international civil aviation is filled by the Aeronautical Information Service . The objective of the Aeronautical Information Service is to ensure the flow of information necessary for the safety, regularity and efficiency of international...

s (AIS) data in digital format. AIXM version 5.0, set to be finalized in late 2007, is based on Geography Markup Language

Geography Markup Language

The Geography Markup Language is the XML grammar defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium to express geographical features. GML serves as a modeling language for geographic systems as well as an open interchange format for geographic transactions on the Internet...

 (GML) and is one of the GML Application Schemas

GML Application Schemas

Geography Markup Language provides the basis for domain- or community-specific "Application Schemas", which in turn support data interoperability within a community of interest...

 which is applicable for the Aeronautical domain. One main goal of AIXM version 5 is to enable 'digital NOTAM

NOTAM

NOTAM or NoTAM is the quasi-acronym for a "Notice To Airmen". NOTAMs are created and transmitted by government agencies and airport operators under guidelines specified by Annex 15: Aeronautical Information Services of the Convention on International Civil Aviation...

'. In this concept, the traditional free text information contained in NOTAM

NOTAM

NOTAM or NoTAM is the quasi-acronym for a "Notice To Airmen". NOTAMs are created and transmitted by government agencies and airport operators under guidelines specified by Annex 15: Aeronautical Information Services of the Convention on International Civil Aviation...

 messages is replaced with structured information, which is suitable for automated computer processing. It is being developed by the US Federal Aviation Administration

Federal Aviation Administration

The Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...

 (FAA) and the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation

European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation

EUROCONTROL is the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation. Founded in 1963, it is an international organisation working for seamless, pan-European air traffic management. EUROCONTROL is a civil organisation and currently has 39 member states; its headquarters are in...

 (EUROCONTROL).

AIXM Conceptual Model

The AIXM Conceptual Model is a conceptual model of the aeronautical domain. It describes the features and their properties (attributes

Attribute (computing)

In computing, an attribute is a specification that defines a property of an object, element, or file. It may also refer to or set the specific value for a given instance of such....

 and associations

Association (object-oriented programming)

In object-oriented programming, association defines a relationship between classes of objects that allows one object instance to cause another to perform an action on its behalf...

) within the domain. Therefore, it can be used as the logical basis for AIM databases.

The model is designed using the Unified Modelling Language (UML).

AIXM XML Schema

The AIXM XML Schema is an exchange model for aeronautical data. It is an implementation of the Conceptual Model as an XML schema

XML schema

An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself...

. Therefore, it can be used to send aeronautical information to others in the form of XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

encoded data, enabling systems to exchange aeronautical information.