Tabu Search for Scheduling and Rescheduling Combat Aircraft

Scheduling an air campaign is time and labor intensive. Exacerbating the problem, combat planners use manual methods to accomplish much of this daunting but critical task. While some work has been done to automate the process, the approaches used generate schedules that must undergo major modifications before they are "flyable." Planners, therefore, distrust the results and use the automated features of the software sparingly. Additional problems arise due to the lag time between the publication of the Air Tasking Order (ATO) and the start of the ATO day. During this time, conditions change in the dynamic battlespace (aircraft break, runways are damaged, etc.). Current execution software performs a validation check against current conditions, but yields no replanning options. This research explores using heuristics to determine good solutions for the initial air campaign plan and extends previous work by including air-tasking priorities. Additionally, the heuristics are adapted to generate replanning options for the ATO Execution Managers. Java was used for portability and for object reusability elsewhere in the planning hierarchy. Furthermore, the method may be applied to other areas in commercial, government, and military organizations. The heuristic can be modified for use in any enterprise where re-scheduling is common.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB Oh School of Engineering is the author of 'Tabu Search for Scheduling and Rescheduling Combat Aircraft', published 2000 under ISBN 9781423538295 and ISBN 1423538293.