Evaluating fleet effectiveness in tactical emergency response missions using a maximal covering formulation

Abstract

This paper concerns the evaluation of alternative fleets of advanced special vessels, like coast guard or emergency response and rescue vessels. The paper proposes a mathematical programming formulation of the Fleet Deployment with Maximal Covering problem and combines analysis of this problem with tradespace exploration and epoch-era analysis. A solution of the mathematical program provides an optimal deployment plan for a given fleet in a given context. The objective function value provides a measure of effectiveness for the fleet alternative. By evaluating the effectiveness of a set of alternative fleets in several alternative scenarios using epoch-era analysis, we obtain strategic insights about dynamic trade-offs and provide decision support for fleet size and mix planning. The paper reconciles the use of mathematical programming for measurement of fleet effectiveness with a design of experiments approach to concept exploration under uncertainty. The results show that it is effective to use mathematical programming for planning horizons with less uncertainty, and account for strategic uncertainties using the epoch-era framework.