Allocation and Design of Aircraft for On-Demand Air Transportation with Uncertain Operations

摘要

Aircraft manufacturers design aircraft to optimize an identified aircraft-specific performance metric (e.g., takeoff gross weight, acquisition cost, and operating cost) based on design requirements derived from market research and the perceived needs of aircraft operators. This is a loose coupling between the aircraft design problem of the aircraft manufacturer and the assignment or allocation problem of the aircraft operator. Providing a tighter coupling between aircraft operations and aircraft design can concurrently identify the best new aircraft design and the best operational concept using this new aircraft. This paper presents an approach to couple the uncertain aircraft assignment problem of fractional operations and the aircraft design problem of aircraft manufacturers. A solution to this type of problem describes an aircraft design that directly improves operations and identifies operating strategies that influence, and take advantage of, the characteristics of the new aircraft. With this formulation, an aircraft manufacturer could work more closely with a customer to determine the best new aircraft for the operations.