Check out the MORS Journal online! The online journal can be found here: http://www.mors.org/Publications/MOR-Journal
Articles Include:
OPTIMAL INTERDICTION OF A GROUND CONVOY
Dong Hwan Oh and R. Kevin Wood
This paper describes and develops theory and a solution method for the convoy quickest-path interdiction problem (CQPI). In CQPI, an interdictor (or attacker) uses limited resources to attack components of a road network to maximally delay a ground convoy transiting between specified origin and destination nodes in the network. The convoy’s commander (or de-fender) routes the convoy on a quickest path, which determines a convoy’s instantaneous speed by the convoy’s length, net-work characteristics, and by doctrine. After defining this new convoy quickest path problem (CQP), the authors develop an A* search algorithm for its solution. Finally, assuming a binary interdiction model in which an interdicted network component becomes impassable, they show how to solve CQPI using a decomposition algorithm that solves CQP subproblems to evaluate tentative interdiction plans.
WHERE TO DIP? SEARCH PATTERN FOR AN ANTISUBMARINE HELICOPTER USING A DIPPING SENSOR
Roey Ben Yoash, Michael P. Atkinson, and Moshe Kress
Antisubmarine warfare (ASW) has seen renewed interest in recent years. The authors study effective ways to operate a helicopter, equipped with dipping sonar (a dipper) in ASW missions. In particular, they examine the dipping pattern and frequency. A high rate of dipping is desirable as search effectiveness degrades in time as the search area expands. However, dipping too frequently results in overlap with previous dips, which may be wasteful. The authors use techniques from search theory and prob-ability to show that disjoint dips are optimal in certain scenarios and generate the corresponding optimal dipping pattern. The results provide insight for planners of ASW missions.
A FRAMEWORK AND SYSTEM FOR THEATER AIR ATTRITION MODELING
Todd J. Paciencia, Daniel J. Richmond, John J. Schumacher, and William L. Troy III
For the United States Air Force, insight into expected blue (friendly) air attrition is an important part of air combat analysis that is used to evaluate force structure options against defense planning scenarios. Underpinned by mission simulation, the authors developed a heuristic to optimize routing over a network-based area to efficiently and accurately calculate expected aircraft attrition. The resulting framework is being used to help assess trades among future force structure options with respect to air campaign performance.
DANCING LINKS FOR OPTIMAL TIMETABLING
Vivian Nguyen, Bill Moran, Ana Novak, Vicky Mak-Hau, Terry Caelli, Brendan Hill, and David Kirszenblat
Algorithms for timetabling solutions typically involve sequential allocation of students to courses and resources as the algorithm unfolds. To this end, most current solutions commonly use some form of stochastic optimization. In this paper, the authors propose an approach for optimal timetabling that comprises two distinct phases. First, they enumerate all feasible course schedules, along with their costs, using a modified implementation of Knuth’s Dancing Links algorithm (DLX) for solving exact cover problems. Once the list of all solutions that satisfy prerequisite and time-clash constraints is generated, the second phase applies a standard integer linear programming (ILP) approach to obtain minimal overall cost assignments of students to course schedules. This method has been applied to a real complex timetabling problem in the Royal Australian Navy helicopter aircrew training program. The results are compared, in terms of computational time, to an exhaustive best practice backtracking algorithm for generating a complete set of feasible schedules, as well as to a pure ILP solution for generating schedules and allocating students to schedules.