Air Traffic Controller Simulator
CS 552
Program #2
Spring 2005
DUE: Monday, April 25
You will simulate an air traffic controller. The air traffic controller will keep
track of one airplane. Only one airplane is specified in order to make things easier on
you, programming wise. HOWEVER, if you implement 2 airplanes, you get +2
points added to your semester grade. This corresponds to +20 points on this
program. NOTE that you must have at least an 80/100 base grade on this program
in order to receive the extra credit. However, you will pretend that you have multiple
airplanes running when you write your program even if you’re only using one. This will
make some of the design patterns which you choose more applicable.
The air traffic controller will keep track of height of airplane and location of
airplane. Height will be specified in even thousands of feet, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, or
5000 feet. (You would not use 1500, 2001, etc. only 1000 or 2000). Only the numbers
just specified will be used (that is, 1000, 2000, …, 5000). Location will be specified as
N,S,E,W,NE,NW,SE,SW.
The air traffic controller will be able to tell the airplane what height and location
to change to, on command from the user. Input to the air traffic controller from the user
can be either command line or GUI, whichever you prefer, but the interface has to be
easy to understand.
The airplane(s) will accept input from the air traffic controller and will print a
message on the screen that it has changed height and location, as specified by the air
traffic controller. Then it will send a confirmation message back to the air traffic
controller, which will print that to the screen.
You will simulate communication between the air traffic controller and the
airplane(s) using socket programming. You will be provided a pair of simple socket
programs, send and receive, that will send text data from one command prompt (DOS)
window to another command prompt (DOS) window using a socket. NOTE: you’ll be
working on only one computer. Don’t bother trying to make this work on more than one
computer.
One send/receive socket pair will be used for the air traffic controller. One
send/receive socket pair will be used for each airplane. You will have one command
prompt window for send and another for receive for the air traffic controller. You will
have one command prompt window for send and another for receive for each airplane.
Thus, the air traffic controller needs 2 windows, and each airplane needs 2 windows.
NOTE: I’ve been assuming in this description that you’re doing only text input and
output. If you use a GUI, then you’ll still be using windows but presumably they won’t
be command prompt windows.
