Capacitated Facility Location Approach for the Tanker Employment Problem

摘要

Air refueling is conducted to provide rapid response, increased range, and extended airborne operations for bombers, fighters, airlift, command and control, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft. The planning and scheduling of limited tanker resources during employment operations is a major concern for Air Mobility Command (AMC). AMC does not currently have a simple tool that runs in a short amount of time to aid in planning operations. The tool developed allows AMC to input several sorties consisting of various aircraft types and armaments. Each sortie contains a base of origin, and is assumed to be attacking or patrolling in an engagement zone defined by the user. The user is also able to specify the locations of military tanker aircraft. The main goal of the tool is to assign the tankers to anchor areas, surrounding the engagement zone so that all receivers can be refueled during their attack operations. Secondary goals include minimizing the number of tankers required (or maximizing the number of receivers supported), and limiting the total flight distance for the tanker aircraft. The TET tool uses the heuristic technique tabu search to determine an assignment of tankers and sorties to anchor areas during employment.