Optimal empty vehicle redistribution for hub‐and‐spoke transportation systems

This article considers the empty vehicle redistribution problem in a hub‐and‐spoke transportation system, with random demands and stochastic transportation times. An event‐driven model is formulated, which yields the implicit optimal control policy. Based on the analytical results for two‐depot systems, a dynamic decomposition procedure is presented which produces a near‐optimal policy with linear computational complexity in terms of the number of spokes. The resulting policy has the same asymptotic behavior as that of the optimal policy. It is found that the threshold‐type control policy is not usually optimal in such systems. The results are illustrated through small‐scale numerical examples. Through simulation the robustness of the dynamic decomposition policy is tested using a variety of scenarios: more spokes, more vehicles, different combinations of distribution types for the empty vehicle travel times and loaded vehicle arrivals. This shows that the dynamic decomposition policy is significantly better than a heuristics policy in all scenarios and appears to be robust to the assumptions of the distribution types. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

Models of sensor operations for border surveillance

This article is motivated by the diverse array of border threats, ranging from terrorists to arms dealers and human traffickers. We consider a moving sensor that patrols a certain section of a border with the objective to detect infiltrators who attempt to penetrate that section. Infiltrators arrive according to a Poisson process along the border with a specified distribution of arrival location, and disappear a random amount of time after their arrival. The measures of effectiveness are the target (infiltrator) detection rate and the time elapsed from target arrival to target detection. We study two types of sensor trajectories that have constant endpoints, are periodic, and maintain constant speed: (1) a sensor that jumps instantaneously from the endpoint back to the starting‐point, and (2) a sensor that moves continuously back and forth. The controlled parameters (decision variables) are the starting and end points of the patrolled sector and the velocity of the sensor. General properties of these trajectories are investigated. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

带数据传输的光学卫星成像调度系统关键技术研究

针对光学小卫星成像调度系统设计需求,考虑侧视、存储容量、能量和数据传输等复杂约束,面向小规模问题应用,设计了问题求解流程.建立了顶点和边都带权的成像约束图模型,并提出了基于标记更新最短路算法的复杂约束成像卫星调度算法解决成像方案生成过程;对数传方案生成过程,给出背包模型并采用带回看策略的贪婪启发式方法进行问题求解.实验结果表明,该方法是可行和适用的.