{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp06_four_proposal_generalization60_20260803","cell_id":"representation_independent_interface_contract__aviation_aeronautics","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"ripc-aviation-predicted-flight-volume-contract-001","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Opaque Predicted-Flight-Volume Contract for Air-Traffic Conflict Tools","problem":"A ground-based trajectory predictor supplies several air-traffic decision-support clients with future aircraft position and uncertainty. Its nominal output is a trajectory object, but clients inspect its waypoint array, assume a particular time spacing and ordering, interpret missing samples locally, or reuse predictor-specific confidence fields. Replacing the predictor or changing its internal representation—from sampled points to splines, reachable sets, or probabilistic particles—can therefore change client behavior even when the declared interface still compiles. The system lacks a representation-independent criterion for deciding whether two predictors are behaviorally substitutable.","actors":["Air-traffic decision-support software owner","Trajectory-prediction engineers","Conflict-detection and conformance-monitoring client teams","Air-traffic safety and assurance reviewers","Air traffic controllers who receive tool advisories but retain operational authority"],"observable_state":"In a bounded code-and-replay audit, the condition is observable if client modules read predictor-owned waypoint or covariance structures directly, depend on undocumented sample order or cadence, branch on implementation-specific error values, or produce different conflict-query results when two nominally compatible trajectory implementations describe the same abstract future flight volume. The audit also records every public result, error category, state transition, timing class, and diagnostic field visible to a client.","consequence":"A predictor substitution or internal optimization can silently alter which aircraft pairs are reported as potentially conflicting, when advisories appear or clear, and how degraded or unavailable predictions are handled. This can create missed, unstable, or implementation-dependent decision-support indications and can make assurance evidence tied to one representation unusable for another.","affected_objective":"Preserve consistent, auditable conflict-query behavior across trajectory-predictor implementations without freezing their internal mathematical or storage representations.","intervention":"Define an opaque PredictedFlightVolume component by its observable behavior rather than by waypoints or another concrete representation. Its abstract state consists of aircraft identity, prediction epoch, supported time interval, revision, validity status, and a time-indexed containment relation describing the spatial volume that the prediction says may be occupied under a declared uncertainty interpretation. Public operations create or obtain a prediction handle, query support and validity, test whether a space-time region intersects the predicted volume, obtain contractually defined conservative bounds, compare revisions, and request sanctioned diagnostics. Preconditions, postconditions, invariant-preserving transitions, error categories, side-effect limits, precision rules, and version compatibility are fixed independently of implementation. Raw control points, particles, coefficients, caches, solver traces, and storage order remain unreachable. Every sampled, spline, set-based, or probabilistic implementation must pass the same black-box conformance oracle before it can be considered a substitute. The first evaluation is confined to offline replay and does not alter controller displays or operational separation decisions.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Abstract behavioral surface","domain_realization":"Operations over an opaque predicted-flight-volume handle: supported_interval, validity, intersects(space_time_region), conservative_bounds(time_window), revision_relation, and sanctioned diagnostics."},{"archetype_element":"Hidden representation","domain_realization":"Waypoint grids, spline coefficients, reachable-set geometry, probability particles, covariance layouts, numerical solvers, caches, and internal update queues are non-contractual."},{"archetype_element":"Behavioral laws and invariants","domain_realization":"Queries outside the supported interval return a declared error without mutation; an invalid prediction cannot yield a valid conflict answer; repeated pure queries on the same revision are observationally stable; conservative bounds contain every point the same implementation classifies as included; revision comparison follows a declared ordering; coordinate-frame and time-basis conversions preserve the abstract containment result within specified numerical tolerance."},{"archetype_element":"Error and side-effect semantics","domain_realization":"The contract distinguishes unsupported time, invalid input, unavailable prediction, stale revision, and internal failure; failed queries do not mutate the prediction, emit operational advisories, or silently substitute zero uncertainty."},{"archetype_element":"Conformance oracle","domain_realization":"A parameterized offline suite checks example cases, generated operation sequences, coordinate/time transformation relations, boundary tolerances, errors, state immutability, and equivalence of observable conflict-query results across implementations."},{"archetype_element":"Substitutability rule","domain_realization":"An implementation is eligible for further assurance only if it exposes no forbidden representation, passes the common conformance suite, and stays within prospectively set replay bounds for semantic divergence and resource use; passing does not itself authorize operational deployment."},{"archetype_element":"Leakage control and stewardship","domain_realization":"A watchlist covers point ordering, sampling cadence, floating-point artifacts, error wording, diagnostic metadata, and coarse timing. Contract changes require joint engineering and safety review, while conforming internal changes remain local to the implementation owner."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"abstract_data_type_specification","role":"Defines the predicted flight volume as a time-indexed abstract containment relation and requires each concrete predictor representation to provide a representation invariant and semantic mapping to that relation.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the abstract state, invariant, and semantic mapping, the contract would reduce to operation names and could not establish that sampled, spline, and set-based representations denote the same kind of object."},{"mechanism_slug":"opaque_type_or_module_boundary","role":"Exposes only a prediction handle and declared operations, preventing clients from inspecting raw waypoint, particle, coefficient, or cache structures.","counterfactual_removal":"Clients could continue reaching into concrete fields, so passing behavioral tests would not prevent new dependencies on the current representation."},{"mechanism_slug":"design_by_contract_clause","role":"Assigns caller and component obligations for coordinate frames, time intervals, validity, tolerances, errors, mutation, and degraded states on every operation.","counterfactual_removal":"Edge cases could remain locally interpreted by each client, allowing implementations with identical signatures to disagree on operationally meaningful failure behavior."},{"mechanism_slug":"black_box_contract_test_suite","role":"Runs one public-surface-only battery against every implementation and makes its results the initial behavioral substitution gate.","counterfactual_removal":"The project would lack a reusable oracle for detecting divergence after a representation change and would rely on implementation-specific tests."},{"mechanism_slug":"property_based_conformance_test","role":"Generates space-time regions and operation sequences to test universal laws such as immutability, bounds containment, revision ordering, and invariant preservation.","counterfactual_removal":"Hand-selected examples could miss boundary combinations and state sequences even if the core contract were otherwise explicit."},{"mechanism_slug":"metamorphic_behavior_test","role":"Checks that declared coordinate-frame transformations, time-origin shifts, and equivalent region decompositions preserve or compose conflict-query results according to the contract when a single exact expected trajectory is unavailable.","counterfactual_removal":"Many physically equivalent replay transformations would have no practical oracle, leaving representation-sensitive behavior undetected."},{"mechanism_slug":"representation_leakage_probe","role":"Compares everything clients can observe with the promised surface and either seals or explicitly sanctions cadence, ordering, diagnostics, error wording, and timing behavior.","counterfactual_removal":"Undocumented but useful observables could become an unofficial interface even though the underlying type is opaque."},{"mechanism_slug":"abstraction_barrier_code_review","role":"Reviews each client or producer change for reliance on behavior outside the recorded contract and records recurring boundary decisions.","counterfactual_removal":"Mechanical opacity would not catch semantic reach-throughs such as relying on stable diagnostic ordering or undocumented tolerance behavior."}],"causal_chain":["Clients currently obtain useful trajectory behavior through a representation-leaking object rather than a complete abstract contract.","They encode assumptions about waypoint layout, sample cadence, ordering, missing values, or implementation-specific uncertainty fields.","A predictor replacement or internal mathematical change alters those accidental observables while leaving the nominal interface intact.","Client conflict and conformance queries consequently diverge for abstractly equivalent predictions, with no shared oracle identifying which behavior is allowed.","The intervention defines the prediction by operations, state transitions, laws, invariants, errors, tolerances, and side-effect limits while making concrete representations unreachable.","Representation mappings and common black-box, property-based, and metamorphic checks test each implementation against that same meaning; leakage auditing removes or sanctions residual observables.","A representation change that preserves the contract can be evaluated locally and consistently, while a behavioral change is surfaced as a contract or implementation decision requiring explicit safety review."],"baseline":"Retain the current predictor-specific trajectory object and regression tests. Each client continues interpreting exposed trajectory fields, and replacement assurance consists of compiling the clients plus replaying their existing implementation-shaped tests.","nearest_rivals":["Standardize one canonical waypoint-and-covariance schema. This simplifies exchange but freezes a concrete sampled representation and does not define operation-sequence laws, failure semantics, or equivalence to non-sampled predictors.","Add adapters from each new predictor to the existing trajectory class. This can preserve current clients temporarily, but it reproduces incumbent representation assumptions and provides no independent behavioral oracle.","Keep one predictor implementation and subject every internal change to full coordinated regression review. This avoids substitution in the short term but retains broad coupling and makes optimization or replacement depend on knowledge of client internals.","Specify only an RPC or message interface for trajectory queries. This fixes operation signatures and types but permits incompatible meanings for validity, uncertainty, boundaries, errors, and state transitions.","Compare new and incumbent predictor outputs point by point. This supplies a differential check but can canonize incumbent quirks and reject valid representations that satisfy the same abstract containment behavior without identical samples."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"Relative to these rivals, the proposal's distinguishing testable claim is narrower: defining a predicted trajectory as an opaque, law-governed space-time query object, with explicit semantic mappings and one implementation-independent conformance gate, can distinguish behavioral compatibility from mere schema or pointwise similarity without requiring clients to share the predictor's representation.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The designated air-traffic system safety authority and operational change-control board retain authority over contract approval, assurance classification, human-factors review, and any deployment. Predictor engineers and client teams may design and test the contract but cannot authorize operational use.","authorized_first_step":"Inventory dependencies and run an offline, read-only replay study using recorded or synthetic scenarios in an isolated test environment. Implement a minimal opaque wrapper and conformance harness around the incumbent plus one deliberately simple alternative model; compare only logged query behavior and resource measurements.","excluded_actions":["No connection to live surveillance or flight-plan feeds","No routing of live operational queries to an experimental implementation","No change to controller displays, alerts, separation minima, flight clearances, or aircraft control","No claim that conformance-suite passage establishes certification, safety, or operational equivalence","No removal of existing trajectory fields from production clients","No use of replayed data beyond its approved handling boundary"],"halt_rollback":"Stop the study if the wrapper changes incumbent replay outputs, obscures invalid or stale states, cannot preserve traceability to source scenarios, exposes restricted data, or produces an untriageable semantic divergence. Roll back by removing the test-only wrapper and harness from the isolated configuration; the production baseline remains unchanged."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"A dependency inventory and controlled representation perturbation show that clients already use only documented semantic operations, that concrete trajectory data are not reachable, and that swapping internal waypoint order, cadence, or representation while preserving declared behavior produces no client-level divergence. That would undercut the proposed causal pathway.","problem_falsifier":"Across the bounded client set, every observed dependency traces to an explicit behavioral promise, and two independently implemented predictors that satisfy those promises yield identical contract-level outcomes for all discriminating replay cases, including invalid, stale, boundary, and transformed-coordinate cases.","intervention_falsifier":"After clients are restricted to the opaque surface, a representation-independent suite still cannot classify known valid and deliberately broken implementations without either exposing concrete trajectory internals or encoding incumbent-specific outputs. The intervention would then fail to provide a usable substitution criterion.","risks":["The abstract containment model may erase operationally relevant distinctions among probabilistic, bounded-error, and intent-based predictions.","A weak suite may admit materially divergent implementations; an over-specified suite may freeze incumbent numerical quirks.","Coordinate, time-basis, and numerical-tolerance clauses may conceal rather than resolve semantic disagreement.","Opaque diagnostics may impede investigation unless sanctioned introspection remains sufficient and access-controlled.","A simple alternative implementation may share assumptions with the incumbent and create false agreement.","Replay scenarios may omit concurrency, degraded inputs, and rare boundary conditions.","Teams may treat a software conformance result as safety approval despite the explicit authority boundary."]},"next_evidence_step":"Select one non-operational conflict-query client and a bounded corpus of replay or synthetic scenarios covering nominal, stale, invalid, interval-boundary, coordinate-transformed, and uncertainty-edge cases. Before examining comparative results, write the minimal abstract state, operation clauses, invariants, tolerances, and pass/fail rules. Wrap the incumbent and an independently constructed simple set-based model behind the same opaque interface; add at least one deliberately broken implementation. Run the common black-box, property-based, metamorphic, and leakage checks. Record whether the suite rejects the seeded defects, where legitimate implementations disagree, which client dependencies cannot be expressed without representation access, and whether each disagreement is attributable to an implementation defect, an under-specified contract, or an unsuitable abstraction. This produces bounded design evidence only, not operational authorization.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Not assessed against other proposals; this sealed response contains exactly one candidate and uses no prior candidate as evidence.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Initial complete proposal"],"conceptual_changes":["Instantiated the representation-independent contract as an opaque predicted-flight-volume abstraction for ground-based air-traffic conflict tools."],"operational_changes":["Restricted the first step to an isolated, read-only replay study with no operational outputs or deployment authority."],"evidence_changes":["Specified dependency inventory, seeded-defect testing, comparative implementations, metamorphic transformations, and leakage checks as bounded first evidence."],"claim_changes":["Limited the claim to a testable distinction between behavioral compatibility and schema or pointwise similarity; made no novelty, prevalence, demand, or effect-size claim."]}}