A carrier deployment model

Abstract

Aircraft carriers are and will continue to be highly important to the United States as she safeguards her interests globally. Today's budget environment, however, demands efficient use of these carrier assets in meeting their station coverage assignments. In a peacetime environment, a carrier's ability to cover a station is constrained by depot maintenance, training cycles, and the Chief of Naval Operations personnel and operating tempo program (PERSTEMPO OPTEMPO). To aid in satisfying this demand on carriers, a mixed integer programming model is developed. The output from the model provides optimal station coverage assignments for a given level of coverage under constraints associated with carrier operations. When implemented in conjunction with the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS), the model requires minimal user inputs and is implementable on a personal computer. Other applications of the model are also demonstrated in several examples.