Robust planning for Effects-Based Operations

In this thesis. we introduce and analyze methods of creating theater-level robust mission plans for Effects Based Operations (EBO) of teams of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and propose methods of effectively presenting the robust plan to an end user. Recent conflicts have demonstrated the utility of UAVs in performing Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and strike missions. As UAVs become more common, high-level pre-planning and task delegation will increase in complexity, requiring computer aided planning. Traditional planning methods, based on deterministic input data, generate plans that become infeasible in uncertain environments. Because military operations tend to contain substantial amounts of uncertainty and re-planning at a theater level is costly, plans should be robust to uncertainty yet still accomplish desired effects. We present an effects-based planning framework in which we connect end effects to tasks, enabling planners to value task assignments based on their ability to achieve desired effects. We apply two robust planning techniques to this framework (Bertsimas/Sim and Chance Constrained Programming) and analyze their performance.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Operations Research Center.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Bryant, Corban Harrell

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cynthia Barnhart.

• Operations Research Center.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37570

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37570