Automated Weight and Balance Software for Aircraft Cargo Planning: Heuristic Approach to the Fleet Air Cargo Weight and Balance Problem

Abstract

The problem of aircraft Weight and Balance considers how an aircraft should see its cargo loaded in order to attain a safe and economical configuration. Traditionally the plan for the internal configuration has been done manually or with a computerized drag-and-drop application, but fully automated solutions have been attempted for decades. Despite their apparent feasibility, no solution has seen widespread use. One possible explanation for this could be the restrictions imposed by the ubiquitous formulation of the Weight and Balance automated planning as a Mixed-Integer Programming Problem, resulting in blind spots shared amongst all the proposed solutions.

This paper studies the problem in detail and formulates a heuristic solution which can solve general cases of the Weight and Balance Problem, respecting the most significant commercial and safety constraints. The heuristic can optimize certain important values, such as the Centre of Gravity, to a decisively more accurate degree than a human operator. Additionally, the paper considers some important factors omitted from most previous research, such as cargo selection and priority given a larger number of aircraft with a shared pool of cargo.

The results obtained support the adoption of a heuristic-based aircraft cargo Weight and Balance planner. The financial impact for airlines adopting such a system is significant. Furthermore, the modularity of the heuristic approach suggests that the source can be tailored to fit the needs of individual airlines with little difficulty.