Exact and Heuristic Approaches for Anti-aircraft Mission Planning for Defensive Missile Battalions.

The distribution of theater defenses involves strategically deploying weapons to safeguard targets against offensive attacks and enhance defensive effectiveness. This is a critical military concern, particularly evident in Vietnam. This study delves into two defense issues: the anti-aircraft launching assignment problem, which calculates missile deployment against attacking aircraft to optimize defense, and the anti-aircraft mission planning problem, which determines optimal battalion locations alongside deployment assignments. Both problems are NP-hard, addressed through exact and heuristic solution approaches. Mixed integer linear programs were developed for optimal resolution via the Cplex solver, while tabu searches offered metaheuristic solutions. Exact methods suit offline scenarios, while metaheuristic approaches are more fitting for online scenarios. Comprehensive experiments validate the efficacy of both methods. Subsequently, a tool integrating the proposed algorithms was developed, tailored for educational use at an air defense-air force academy in Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]