空中加油最优分配建模与实现

确定最佳空中加油方案,既有一定难度,又有重要的实用价值.本文针对加油机可以多次上天情况,对这一问题展开研究,确定了使主机飞行距离最大的空中加油方案.我们将飞机飞行过程分为出航和返航两个阶段,首先利用数学归纳法得出出航阶段的最佳加油方案;然后对返航过程建立约束方程组,求出返航阶段的最佳加油方案.利用这一模型结果可以对任意多架加油机的情况确定全程最佳加油方案.最后结合出航、返航编队及飞行姿态调整对模型作了一定范围的定量扩展,使本文的研究更具有实用价值.     

空中加油问题最大作战半径的计算

本文基于对称性与均衡分配的方法,对基地有一架主机和n架辅机的空中加油问题进行讨论分析,设计了空中加油问题的优化作战方案,给出了该方案下最大作战半径的递推公式,利用数值拟合的方法求出了最大作战半径的近似计算公式.     

空中加油问题当前最好的几个方案

通过比较增加一架辅机后主机飞行距离的净增量,得到当前最好的从一架到数万架辅机的可行方案;同时通过两个反例,揭示了空中加油问题新的研究方向.     

空中加油问题模型建立及其解法

空中加油问题是一个关于在飞机飞行过程中,辅机在空中给主机加油来提高主机直航能力的问题.该题的要求是在辅机架数n一定的情况下,确定最优作战方案及主机的最大作战半径.对于问题1和问题2,首先给出了一般情况下的飞机调度的数学模型,然后用穷举法求出了n≤4情况下的最优作战方案及主机的最大作战半径rn,然后用归纳法推导出了n为一般情况下rn的上下界,最后给出了判断最优作战方案的必要条件.问题3中,给出了与问题1、问题2类似问题的求解结果.问题4中,首先求出了n≤4时空军基地的选址和最优作战方案,然后给出了n为一般情况下,最优作战方案和基地选址的通用数学模型.问题5中,在主机最快到达目的地并返回的条件下,给出了主机的飞行路线和最优作战方案;在满足辅机架数最少的条件下,给出了作战方案,并用MATLAB求出了满足该条件时的最少辅机架数的上界为248架.另外,给出了一些新的定义方法和定理并全部给予证明.     

空中加油问题

对空中加油问题的前两个问题进行了深入系统的研究,发现并证明了与最优解相关的若干事实,对后续的问题求解具有重要的意义.利用得出的结论,加以推导得出求解rn的递推公式,并由此设计了类似于动态规划的循环递推算法.引入“虚拟基地”和“一次性加油”的概念,通过推导得到rn的上界和下界,得出rn与n的渐进关系是对数关系.最后,又提出将问题转化成为二维平面问题,建立一个二叉树模型,通过求解线性规划得到最优解.     

空中加油问题的递推模型与调度策略

首先对空中加油问题进行了分析,提取了相关性质,在此基础上建立了问题的递推模型.根据该模型,提出了一种启发式搜索算法.该算法计算复杂度低,适用性好.对应于辅机是否可以多次起飞,该算法分为两子算法.对这两种不同情况下的具体问题,设计了相关的优化函数.所有算法都在计算机中运行,并得到了相应结果.值得指出的是,提出的启发式搜索算法十分高效.对于问题1和问题2,该算法所得解是约束条件下的最优调度策略.对于问题3,问题4,问题5,该算法所得解逼近最优调度策略.     

多机型航班恢复问题研究

主要研究了基于航班延误时间最短的航班行程规划问题,分别建立了最基本的多机型航班恢复问题模型、考虑旅客行程重新规划的航班恢复问题模型.在约束条件下,先在单机型航班恢复的基础上考虑多机型航班恢复,最后考虑基于飞机载客量的多机型航班恢复.构建时空网络模型,结合改进的分支定界法和启发式算法,确定筛选范围,调整不同的影响范围,达到较优的结果.对于多机型航班恢复问题,得到航班总延误时间为12850分钟.接着分析考虑飞机载客量的多机型航班恢复问题,分析建立的模型得到航班总延误时间为约1886650分钟.建立的模型有较好的鲁棒性,且具有较好的实用性.     

无人机灾情巡查区域搜索的建模与求解

采用无人机对地震灾区进行巡查是了解灾情的重要手段,在复杂灾区环境下制定无人机的巡查路线尤为关键.首先针对重点震区灾情巡查问题,构建了带有山体遮挡的区域搜索模型,提出一种基于栅格扫描线的区域搜索算法,从而得到在综合考虑巡查时间、覆盖率、无人机数量以及飞行路线等因素时的最佳巡查方案.其次针对全区域巡查问题,建立了基于区域划分的栅格搜索模型,并提出基于蚁群的改进栅格搜索算法,得到无人机数量少、巡查时间短和巡查路线优的全区域优化巡查方案.     

航班恢复规划的数学建模

针对第十四届全研究生数学建模竞赛C题的航班恢复规划问题展开研究,将多机场问题简化为双机场航班重排问题,研究了中枢机场应急关闭之后航班的规划.首先,建立了单一机型的航班恢复模型,通过飞机置换使该机型航班航班延误总时间最小.然后,引入多机型及不同机型交换成本,建立多机型,双机场的类时空网络模型,并引入航班串的概念,进一步减小航班重排后的整体延误时间.最后,增加旅客总体延误时间的考虑.进一步考虑航班之间不同机型交换带来的影响,将计划起飞时间位于18:00到22:30的航班,在21:00到22:30时间段中进行重新排列.通过Lingo计算包括航班延误,航班取消和飞机置换的方法所有航班的最小化延误.     

系统最佳维修策略研究

一个复杂系统通常由多个不同部件组成，考虑到这些部件有各自不同的失效率及维修时间，本提出了一种新的维修策略模型，该模型考虑了不同部件的差异性及对系统的不同重要性，在一定可用度要求下，使系统总平均费用达到最小的最佳预防维修周期，并给出了相应的仿真算法。     

Workforce-constrained maintenance scheduling for military aircraft fleet: a case study

The problem is related to a fleet of military aircraft with a certain flying program in which the availability of the aircraft sufficient to meet the flying program is a challenging issue. During the pre- or after-flight inspections, some component failures of the aircraft may be found. In such cases, the aircraft are sent to the repair shop to be scheduled for maintenance jobs, consisting of failure repairs or preventive maintenance tasks. The objective is to schedule the jobs in such a way that sufficient number of aircrafts is available for the next flight programs. The main resource, as well as the main constraint, in the shop is skilled-workforce. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer mathematical programming model in which the network flow structure is used to simulate the flow of aircraft between missions, hanger and repair shop. The proposed model is solved using the classical Branch-and-Bound method and its performance is verified and analyzed in terms of a number of test problems adopted from the real data. The results empirically supported practical utility of the proposed model.     

Abort landing in the presence of windshear as a minimax optimal control problem,part 1: Necessary conditions

The landing of a passenger aircraft in the presence of windshear is a threat to aviation safety. The present paper is concerned with the abort landing of an aircraft in such a serious situation. Mathematically, the flight maneuver can be described by a minimax optimal control problem. By transforming this minimax problem into an optimal control problem of standard form, a state constraint has to be taken into account which is of order three. Moreover, two additional constraints, a first-order state constraint and a control variable constraint, are imposed upon the model. Since the only control variable appears linearly, the Hamiltonian is not regular. Thus, well-known existence theorems about the occurrence of boundary arcs and boundary points cannot be applied. Numerically, this optimal control problem is solved by means of the multiple shooting method in connection with an appropriate homotopy strategy. The solution obtained here satisfies all the sharp necessary conditions including those depending on the sign of certain multipliers. The trajectory consists of bang-bang and singular subarcs, as well as boundary subarcs induced by the two state constraints. The occurrence of boundary arcs is known to be impossible for regular Hamiltonians and odd-ordered state constraints if the order exceeds two. Additionally, a boundary point also occurs where the third-order state constraint is active. Such a situation is known to be the only possibility for odd-ordered state constraints to be active if the order exceeds two and if the Hamiltonian is regular. Because of the complexity of the optimal control, this single problem combines many of the features that make this kind of optimal control problems extremely hard to solve. Moreover, the problem contains nonsmooth data arising from the approximations of the aerodynamic forces and the distribution of the wind velocity components. Therefore, the paper can serve as some sort of user's guide to solve inequality constrained real-life optimal control problems by multiple shooting.An extended abstract of this paper was presented at the 8th IFAC Workshop on Control Applications of Nonlinear Programming and Optimization, Paris, France, 1989 (see Ref. 1).This paper is dedicated to Professor Hans J. Stetter on the occasion of his 60th birthday.     

Control of an aircraft landing in windshear

The problem of the feedback control of an aircraft landing in the presence of windshear is considered. The landing process is investigated up to the time when the runway threshold is reached. It is assumed that the bounds on the wind velocity deviations from some nominal values are known, while information about the windshear location and wind velocity distribution in the windshear zone is absent. The methods of differential game theory are employed for the control synthesis.The complete system of aircraft dynamic equations is linearized with respect to the nominal motion. The resulting linear system is decomposed into subsystems describing the vertical (longitudinal) motion and lateral motion. For each subsystem, an, auxiliary antagonistic differential game with fixed terminal time and convex payoff function depending on two components of the state vector is formulated. For the longitudinal motion, these components are the vertical deviation of the aircraft from the glide path and its time derivative; for the lateral motion, these components are the lateral deviation and its time derivative. The first player (pilot) chooses the control variables so as to minimize the payoff function; the interest of the second player (nature) in choosing the wind disturbance is just opposite.The linear differential games are solved on a digital computer with the help of corresponding numerical methods. In particular, the optimal (minimax) strategy is obtained for the first player. The optimal control is specified by means of switch surfaces having a simple structure. The minimax control designed via the auxiliary differential game problems is employed in connection with the complete nonlinear system of dynamical equations.The aircraft flight through the wind downburst zone is simulated, and three different downburst models are used. The aircraft trajectories obtained via the minimax control are essentially better than those obtained by traditional autopilot methods.     

Abort landing in windshear: Optimal control problem with third-order state constraint and varied switching structure

Optimal abort landing trajectories of an aircraft under different windshear-downburst situations are computed and discussed. In order to avoid an airplane crash due to severe winds encountered by the aircraft during the landing approach, the minimum altitude obtained during the abort landing maneuver is to be maximized. This maneuver is mathematically described by a Chebyshev optimal control problem. By a transformation to an optimal control problem of Mayer type, an additional state variable inequality constraint for the altitude has to be taken into account; here, its order is three. Due to this altitude constraint, the optimal trajectories exhibit, depending on the windshear parameters, up to four touch points and also up to one boundary arc at the minimum altitude level. The control variable is the angle of attack time rate which enters the equations of motion linearly; therefore, the Hamiltonian of the problem is nonregular. The switching structures also includes up to three singular subarcs and up to two boundary subarcs of an angle of attack constraint of first order. This structure can be obtained by applying some advanced necessary conditions of optimal control theory in combination with the multiple-shooting method. The optimal solutions exhibit an oscillatory behavior, reaching the minimum altitude level several times. By the optimization, the maximum survival capability can also be determined; this is the maximum wind velocity difference for which recovery from windshear is just possible. The computed optimal trajectories may serve as benchmark trajectories, both for guidance laws that are desirable to approach in actual flight and for optimal trajectories may then serve as benchmark trajectories both for guidance schemes and also for numerical methods for problems of optimal control.This paper is dedicated to Professor George Leitmann on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.     

A heuristic approach for an integrated fleet-assignment,aircraft-routing and crew-pairing problem

This paper deals with the fleet-assignment, aircraft-routing and crew-pairing problems of an airline flying between Canary Islands. There are two major airports (bases). The company is subdivided in three operators. There are no flight during the night. A crew route leaves from and returns to the same base. An aircraft route starts from one base and arrive to the other base due to maintenance requirements. Therefore some crews must change aircrafts, which is an undesired operation. This paper presents a mathematical formulation based on a binary variable for each potential crew and aircraft route, and describes a column-generation algorithm for obtaining heuristic solutions. Computational results on real-world instances are given and compared to manual solutions by the airline.     

Modelling and analysis of Canadian Forces strategic lift and pre-positioning options

This paper presents analysis of some of the strategic lift and pre-positioning issues within the context of rapid deployability to failed and failing states conducted for the Canadian Forces (CF). A simulation framework was developed to study the effectiveness of a variety of pre-positioning options. An aircraft loading optimization model based on a genetic annealing algorithm with a novel convex hull-based measure of effectiveness was also developed to analyse different strategic lift options. The model was used both to provide insights into the optimal mix of airlift capabilities and to conduct sensitivity analysis. Historical CF deployments provided a baseline performance measure against which several movement solutions were compared and contrasted. Analysis indicates that pre-positioning of equipment and supplies at various strategic locations and use of efficient mix of transport aircraft could be potential strategies for improvement of the CF's strategic lift capability.     

On complemented nonabelian chief factors of a finite group

The number of chief factors which are complemented in a finite groupG may not be the same in two chief series ofG, despite what occurs with the number of frattini chief factors or of chief factors which are complemented by a maximal subgroup ofG. In this paper we determine the possible changes on that number. These changes can only occur in a certain type of nonabelian chief factors. All groups considered in this paper are assumed to be finite. Both authors were supported in part by DGICYT, PB94-1048.     

Effectiveness of the Air Traffic Control System

The number of mid-air collisions which would occur if all pilots were flying uncontrolled and blindfolded is computed from data on the sizes, speeds and density of aircraft, and compared to the number which actually occurred over the United States during the 9-year period 1964-1972. The ratio comes out at least 32 to 1 for low-altitude en route traffic, and at least 84 to 1 in low-altitude terminal airspace (5-30 miles from the centre of an airport). Within 5 miles the density is so high that this ratio would have been far higher, and meaningless; the number of collisions at high altitudes is very small, and again less than would be predicted by the model. The model is such that it might drastically underestimate the number of collisions (and therefore the above ratios), but could not overestimate it by more than a factor of two or three. It is concluded that under conditions of moderate to high densities of air traffic, the air traffic control system and its inherent doctrine of see-and-avoid are useful in avoiding collisions.     

A Heuristic Algorithm for Assigning Crews Among Bases in an Airlift Operation

In this paper, the optimum assignment of crews among the bases in an airlift operation is considered. An airlift operation consists of transporting large quantities of equipment and personnel among various bases. The crews operating the aircraft rest for a constant period of time after arriving at the bases, before flying again. In order to minimize the waiting times of the aircraft at the bases for want of rested crews, the available crews are distributed initially among the bases.Using earlier results of the mean waiting time of an aircraft at a single base and the probability distribution of the inter-departure times of the aircraft from the base, the problem of optimum allocation of crews is formulated as a non-linear integer programming problem. A heuristic algorithm is developed using the Lagrange multiplier. Its solution is compared with the exact solution for a number of test cases, and the algorithm is found to perform well.