Platform Design for Fleet-Level Efficiency

Abstract

This research leverages techniques from the fields of multidisciplinary design optimization and operations research into an approach to improve energy efficiency-related defense acquisition decisions. The work focuses on the acquisition of new cargo aircraft for the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command (AMC), which is the largest consumer of fuel in the Department of Defense. The approach here extends prior work in fleet-level acquisition decisions from a commercial aviation context into the context of Air Mobility Command. The framework, with the abstractions and assumptions used, successfully considers the design requirements of the new aircraft to meet fleet-level metrics. The framework does this by using the new aircraft design requirements to describe that new aircraft's characteristics and then uses those characteristics to allocate the new aircraft, along with other existing aircraft, to meet fleet-level metrics. The approach begins to address uncertain cargo demand following scheduling-like constraints to represent typical AMC operations more closely. Fuel efficiency of the resulting fleet provides a metric for comparison of the effect of the new aircraft requirements.