Load Planning of Transport Aircraft Based on Hybrid Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

Loading of transport aircraft attracts much attention as the airlift is developing rapidly. It refers to the process that various cargoes are loaded, in an appropriate manner, into kinds of transport aircrafts with constraints of volume, weight and gravity center. Based on two-dimensional bin packing with genetic algorithm (GA), a new hybrid algorithm is proposed to solve the multi-constraint loading problem of transport aircraft for seeking the minimum of fuel consumption. Heuristic algorithm is applied to optimize single-aircraft loading in GA decoding, and the procedure of hybrid GA is summarized for the multi-aircraft loading issues. In the case study, eight kinds of cargos are distributed in three different aircrafts. The optimal result indicates that this algorithm can rapidly generate the best plan for the loading problem regarding lower transport costs.