Location and routing of armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and carrier platforms against mobile targets
研究如何确定航母平台初始位置、搭载无人机类型与数量，并规划无人机时空路径以打击移动水面目标，提出整数线性规划模型和蚁群启发式算法，实验表明算法能在短时间内求解大规模问题。
In this study, we consider a real-life combinatorial optimization problem related to deploying and routing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and naval carrier platforms. In particular, we seek to determine the initial locations for carrier platforms and the optimal type and number of UAVs to be stationed on each carrier platform as well as their spatial/temporal routes for engaging hostile surface targets in the region. Our modeling framework incorporates a number of realistic but challenging ingredients and assumptions such as the mobility of surface targets and carrier platforms during the mission, capacitated multiple platforms and UAVs, UAV-carrier platform compatibility, and allowance for different takeoff/land on platforms for UAVs. In the effort to represent the problem mathematically, we first formulated an Integer Linear Program (ILP) model which seeks to maximize the total time-dependent weights of the targets engaged. Next, we proposed a heuristic solution algorithm based on the ant colony optimization framework. Our computational experiments performed on instances with different sizes showed that the heuristic approach achieves high-quality solutions even for large-size problem instances in short CPU times.