We formulate and solve aircraft-routing problems that arise when planning missions for military aircraft that are subject to ground-based threats such as surface-to-air missiles. We use a constrained-shortest path (CSP) model that discretizes the relevant airspace into a grid of vertices representing potential waypoints, and connects vertices with directed edges to represent potential flight segments. The model is flexible: It can route any type of manned or unmanned aircraft; it can incorporate any number of threats; and it can incorporate, in the objective function or as side constraints, numerous mission-specific metrics such as risk, fuel consumption, and flight time. We apply a new algorithm for solving the CSP problem and present computational results for the routing of a high-altitude F/A-18 strike group, and the routing of a medium-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle. The objectives minimize risk from ground-based threats while constraints limit fuel consumption and/or flight time. Run times to achieve a near-optimal solution range from fractions of a second to 80 seconds on a personal computer. We also demonstrate that our methods easily extend to handle turn-radius constraints and round-trip routing.


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    Title :

    Routing Military Aircraft with a Constrained Shortest-Path Algorithm


    Contributors:
    W. M. Carlyle (author) / J. O. Royset (author) / R. K. Wood (author)

    Publication date :

    2007


    Size :

    44 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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