An Improved Simulated Annealing-Based Decision Model for the Hybrid Flow Shop Scheduling of Aviation Ordnance Handling.

Aviation ordnance handling is critical to the firepower projection of the time-critical cyclic flight operation on aircraft carriers. The complexity of the problem depends on the supply and demand features of ordnance. This paper examines the scheduling of aviation ordnance handling of an operational aircraft carrier under the framework of hybrid flow shop scheduling (HFS) and derives a method based on the simulated annealing (SA) algorithm to get the HFS problem's solution. The proposed method achieves the minimum possible flow time by optimizing the ordnance assignment through different stages. The traditional SA algorithm depends heavily on the heuristic scheme and consumes too much time to compute the optimal solution. To solve the problem, this paper improves the SA by embedding a task-based encoding method and a matrix perturbation method. The improved SA remains independent of the heuristic scheme and effectively propagates the local search process. Since the performance of SA is also influenced by its embedded parameters, orthogonal tests were carried out to carefully compare and select these parameters. Finally, different ordnance loading plans were simulated to reveal the advantage of the improved SA. The simulation results show that the improved SA (ISA) can generate better and faster solution than the traditional SA. This research provides a practical solution to stochastic HFS problems.

Reliability Calculation Method of Shipborne Vehicles' Sortie Mission for Dynamic Network Structure.

To provide decision support to the commander, it is necessary to calculate shipborne vehicles' sortie mission reliability during the formulation of the layout plan. Therefore, this paper presents the sortie mission network model and reliability calculation method for shipborne vehicles. Firstly, the shipborne vehicle layout and sortie task characteristics are used to establish the sortie mission network model. The shipborne vehicles' sortie mission reliability problem is transformed into a two-terminal network reliability problem. Secondly, the minimal path set method is used to calculate the two-terminal network reliability. An improved tabu search algorithm based on a strategy of breaking up the whole into parts is proposed to search for the minimal path set that matches the length. Finally, the sum of disjoint products is used to process the minimal path set to obtain the shipborne vehicles' sortie mission reliability calculation formula. A numerical analysis of two simplified shipborne vehicles' layouts is given to illustrate the calculation process of the method. This study provides a new evaluation index and an effective quantitative basis for the evaluation system of shipborne vehicles' layout. It also provides theoretical support for the development of decision-making related to the sortie mission of shipborne vehicles.