USAF

Success Stories

USAF - AIRCRAFT BASING

The US Air Force must deploy aircraft on a global basis to support various missions simultaneously. The USAF’s Bomber Force -- a very expensive asset -- needed an IT scheduling and planning tool that would optimize where these aircraft should be based. There were many constraints and parameters to be considered, such as current treaty negotiations, “hot spots”, real world operational base capabilities, and future capability projections.

Quantum Leap developed a software solution to optimize this aircraft basing challenge under different user-defined scenarios. The tool considers future threat scenarios and allows the USAF to perform simulations of multiple parameters - such as least cost munitions deployment for various potential conflicts, using available force structure. It’s flexibility is unique in that it quickly allows re-planning and re-optimizing basing strategy according to changing needs.

Quantum Leap leveraged its patented Adaptive Optimization Engine® to quickly produce optimized plans as new constraints and objectives were discovered. The new constraints could be quickly incorporated, often in less than an hour, without affecting the stability of the system or affecting the implementation of any prior constraint.

USAF - SATELLITE GROUND STATIONS

The US Air Force manages a global satellite space network consisting of highly expensive resources: 15 ground-based tracking resources, approximately 35 antenna, and several satellites. The control network manages 500 satellite-to-ground antenna contacts per day, which were increasingly becoming conflicted. Each transmission must occur during a valid visibility window, which depends on the satellite orbit, antennae location, and weather conditions. Scheduling these extensive resources with the given constraints is a highly complex, nonlinear problem, and the USAF could not find a solution to enable them to manage twice as many satellite-to-ground contacts with no additional investment in capital equipment.

Quantum Leap was awarded a contract to help the USAF solve this challenge and produced a scheduling & planning system that produced a more efficient schedule of satellite-to-antennae contacts, decreased response time, and increased antennae utilization. Quantum Leap’s patented Adaptive Optimization Engine® supplied the necessary compute intensive logic for generating the optimized schedules.

Additionally, the system had to generate a new schedule based on rapidly changing circumstances. Quantum Leap’s solution can develop a 24-hour schedule in less than an hour on a standard PC -- half the time expected by the USAF requirements. Partial reschedules to accommodate unexpected events are generated in minutes, with more refinement added as more algorithms are applied to the problem. The USAF achieved their goals -- 83% of the daily contacts were deconflicted through the scheduling (and re-scheduling) process.

USAF - SPACELIFTS

The US Air Force must manage and test expensive, high-value assets on a regular basis to keep operationally at peak levels - such as rocket launch pads, tracking equipment, and supporting facilities and equipment, and range personnel. The USAF’s challenge to Quantum Leap was to integrate and optimize the scheduling of these assets over a 12-month period. An example of one mission might be to launch and track satellites at both Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg until they reach orbit or are destroyed. The complex variables consisted of over 20 types of missions with approximately 50 different assets per mission, with very diverse relationships and decision rules.

Quantum Leap developed the Scheduling and Planning Framework Tool to optimize this range scheduling challenge. The tool was able to schedule nearly 60% of launch requests in less than 60 seconds. This enabled the USAF to accept and optimally schedule 70 launch requests over a 15-day period. The tool also enabled people who were not system experts to interact and author the scheduling process.

The framework leveraged Quantum Leap’s patented Adaptive Optimization Engine® to quickly produce optimized plans as new constraints and objectives were discovered. The new constraints could be quickly incorporated, often in less than an hour, without affecting the stability of the system or affecting the implementation of any prior constraint

Intellectual Property

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