Fuzzy Mixed Integer Linear Programming for Air Vehicles Operations
  Optimization
  Multiple Air Vehicles (AVs) to prosecute geographically dispersed targets is
an important optimization problem. Associated multiple tasks viz., target
classification, attack and verification are successively performed on each
target. The optimal minimum time performance of these tasks requires
cooperation among vehicles such that critical time constraints are satisfied
i.e. target must be classified before it can be attacked and AV is sent to
target area to verify its destruction after target has been attacked. Here,
optimal task scheduling problem from Indian Air Force is formulated as Fuzzy
Mixed Integer Linear Programming (FMILP) problem. The solution assigns all
tasks to vehicles and performs scheduling in an optimal manner including
scheduled staged departure times. Coupled tasks involving time and task order
constraints are addressed. When AVs have sufficient endurance, existence of
optimal solution is guaranteed. The solution developed can serve as an
effective heuristic for different categories of AV optimization problems.
