Date of Award

3-14-2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Sarah G. Nurre, PhD.

Abstract

We consider the problem of routing an aircraft (receiver) from a starting location to a target and back to an ending location while maintaining a fuel level above a predetermined level during all stages of the route and avoiding threat and no-fly zones. The receiver is routed to air refueling locations to refuel as required. The development of the network requires the processing of threat and no-fly zones to create the set of nodes that includes the bases (starting and end locations), the targets, and air refueling locations in addition to the restricted zone nodes. We develop a greedy heuristic that builds the route using arc paths and the on board fuel level to determine the termination of each sequential arc path. Post processing of the routes reduces the fuel remaining on board by shifting the time at target or reversing the route. The results from the greedy heuristic are compared to the results from the current methodology and show that the heuristic requires less time to produce routes that require less fuel.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENS-14-M-14

DTIC Accession Number

ADA600071

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