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By
Eric Mankin
August 19, 2002
A highly decorated Marine
Air Group has begun streamlining its planning and reducing operational
risk with a new software system developed at Vanderbilt University
and the University of Southern California.
The system, created by researchers at Vanderbilt's Institute for
Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) and the USC School of Engineering
Information Sciences Institute (ISI), performs scheduling functions
in minutes that used to require hours. The first operational schedule
produced by the system was accepted for actual use on board a carrier
in Japan August 6.
The system was previously extensively tested by Marine Air Group
13 (MAG 13), both in MAG 13's base of operations in Yuma AZ, and
on board carriers. MAG 13 was the home unit of such famous Marine
pilots as WWII ace Pappy Boyington and astronaut John Glenn. MAG
13 aircraft saw action in the Gulf war and are aboard carriers supporting
operations in Afghanistan.
The new system is based
on a technology called ANT -- Autonomous Negotiating Teamware --
which has individual software modules that represent different concerns
and goals involved in managing a combat air squadron. The modules
communicate with each other, sharing their information, overruling
or yielding according to a set of predetermined priorities.
These structured exchanges of requests and counterproposals lead
to agreements that become elements of a schedule.
"Creating schedules for a squadron involves balancing a huge number
of factors," says Robert Neches, director of ISI's distributed scalable
systems division and co-leader of the ISI team responsible for the
operations sections of the software. "Pilots want to get the maximum
number of flying hours to maintain their ratings and extend their
skills. The airspace has to be clear, suitable and acceptably safe
for intended operations. Policies and commitments from higher command
have to be satisfied. And, of course, the weather changes."
Gabor Karsai, an associate professor in Vanderbilt's department of electrical engineering and computer science, led the software team responsible for modules covering supply and maintenance issues, aircraft preparation and ground equipment. The other Vanderbilt researchers involved in the project were co-leader Benoit Dawant, plus Technical Lead Christopher P. van Buskirk, together with Gabor Szokoli, Himanshu Neema, Jonathan Sprinkle, and Karlkim Suwanmongkol,.
A novel feature of the new system is that it simultaneously balances tricky maintenance requirements against operational demands, while considering risks involved with each decision. It considers resource constraints, such as how many mechanics are available, and risk factors, such as the additional stress of performing many complex procedures simultaneously.
ISI's Neches says that all the variables for operations and maintenance, and their many interactions, add up to thousands of issues that must be settled to make a squadron's schedule for a single day.
"It takes an experienced operations scheduler as much as six hours per day -- and lots of time for a maintenance controller as well -- to create daily schedules ... that balance ... all [the] variables," says retired Marine Corps. Col. Russ Currer, a Harrier pilot, Joint Strike Fighter Program expert and former commander of MAG-13 who was a key consultant for the researchers. "This software lets them do the job in four minutes."
The new system doesn't schedule operations until alternatives have been reviewed and approved by a human manager. "The operations commander is able to easily investigate possible variations," explains ISI scientist and project co-leader Pedro Szekely. For example, a commander might want pilots to fly at least 15 hours a week. Other factors could make this difficult, while a 10 hour-a-week parameter might result in too much downtime.
The system can help the commander/schedulers perceive choke points,
places where everything is held up by one factor, and find ways
around the difficulty, says Szekely. This feature attracted the
attention of Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Michael A. Hough, who wrote
an August 7, 2001 letter to ANT's funders -- the Defense Advanced
Research Project Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research
(ONR) -- that called the system a "gem."
In April, ANT was presented to all general-rank Marine air officers. MAG 13's current commanding officer, Col. Mark Savarese, requested operational deployment of the experimental software for all his squadrons, including units going out on operations with Marine Expeditionary Units, after the system compiled outstanding marks in repeated evaluations by senior flight officers.
According to Neches, many non-military planning tasks requiring complex coordination of numerous variables could use similar software systems. Commercial air, trucking or package-delivery operations are obvious examples.
Besides Neches and Szekeley, ISI researchers Jinbo Chen and Martin Frank and a subcontractor, Crystaliz Inc., of Concord, MA also collaborated on the operations side of the software. The Vanderbilt team was assisted by Jon Doyle, Bob Laddaga, and Vera Ketelboeter of M.I.T. and George Bloor of the Boeing Company.
-VU-
Eric Mankin is the science writer for the University
of Southern California School of Engineering.
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