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Loading aircraft for military operations

Author

Listed:
  • C Guéret

    (École des Mines de Nantes
    IRCCyN—Institut de Recherche en Communications et Cybernétique de Nantes)

  • N Jussien

    (École des Mines de Nantes)

  • O Lhomme

    (IPogSA)

  • C Pavageau

    (École des Mines de Nantes)

  • C Prins

    (Université de Technologie de Troyes)

Abstract

In this paper, we describe an aircraft loading problem submitted by the French military agency (DGA) as part of a more general military airlift planning problem. It can be viewed as a kind of bi-dimensional bin-packing problem, with heterogeneous bins and several additional constraints. We introduce two-phase methods for solving this NP-hard problem. The first phase consists in building good initial solutions, thanks to two fast algorithms: a list-based heuristic and a loading pattern generation method. Both algorithms call a constraint-based subroutine, able to determine quickly if the items already loaded can be reshuffled to accommodate a new object. The second phase improves these preliminary solutions using local search techniques. Results obtained on real data sets are presented.

Suggested Citation

  • C Guéret & N Jussien & O Lhomme & C Pavageau & C Prins, 2003. "Loading aircraft for military operations," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 54(5), pages 458-465, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:54:y:2003:i:5:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2601551
    DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601551
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Mavrommatis, George, 2008. "Learning objects and objectives towards automatic learning construction," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(3), pages 1449-1458, June.
    3. Brandt, Felix & Nickel, Stefan, 2019. "The air cargo load planning problem - a consolidated problem definition and literature review on related problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(2), pages 399-410.
    4. A Ghanmi & R H A D Shaw, 2008. "Modelling and analysis of Canadian Forces strategic lift and pre-positioning options," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(12), pages 1591-1602, December.
    5. Gilbert Laporte, 2010. "Comments on: Routing problems with loading constraints," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 18(1), pages 28-30, July.

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