Disruptions and Robustness in Air Force Crew Scheduling

Air Force crew scheduling involves assigning pilots to flights to fulfill mission duties and complete training requirements. Because of complex qualification requirements, as well as crew rest and availability constraints, Air Force crew scheduling is a challenging combinatorial optimization problem. Further, last-minute disruptions and uncertainties in factors like flight duration and pilot availability motivate the need for more robust schedules. Traditionally, this has been a manual, tedious, and time-consuming process. In this thesis, we leverage optimization techniques to improve the crew scheduling process. We start with a baseline integer program formulation. We develop objective functions based on two known scheduler priorities: maximizing training requirements completed, and minimizing overqualification (assigning the lowest qualified pilot feasible for each pilot seat). Then, we present a formulation to handle disruptions to an original schedule. We develop an intuitive schedule visualization tool that we use for user studies, and discuss user feedback on our scheduling algorithms. Finally, we identify key uncertainties in Air Force crew scheduling and contrast them with commercial aviation. We adapt two concepts from commercial aviation for robust crew scheduling: buffer times (slack time between two successive flights operated by the same pilots) and move-up crews (back-up crews for substitution when pilots become unavailable). This work will contribute to the core of the Puckboard scheduling software being developed by the Air Force for crew scheduling.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Chin, Christopher Ho-Yen

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Balakrishnan, Hamsa

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright MIT

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/139538

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/139538