Posted: August 14th, 2022

Developing a Decision Support System for Optimal Fleet Deployment of Tankers Using AI Planning

Developing a Decision Support System for Optimal Fleet Deployment of Tankers Using AI Planning

Tankers are essential for transporting oil and gas across the world. However, managing a fleet of tankers is a complex and challenging task that requires careful planning and coordination. How can operators optimize the deployment of their tankers to meet the demand and supply of different markets, while minimizing the operational costs and risks?

One possible solution is to use artificial intelligence (AI) planning techniques to develop a decision support system (DSS) for optimal fleet deployment of tankers. AI planning is a branch of AI that deals with finding sequences of actions that achieve a desired goal, given some initial state and some constraints. A DSS is a computer-based system that helps decision makers to analyze data, generate alternatives, and evaluate the outcomes of their choices.

In this blog post, we will explore how AI planning can be applied to the problem of optimal fleet deployment of tankers, and what are the benefits and challenges of this approach.

AI Planning for Optimal Fleet Deployment of Tankers

The problem of optimal fleet deployment of tankers can be formulated as a planning problem, where the goal is to find a sequence of actions that assign each tanker to a route that maximizes the profit and minimizes the cost and risk. The actions include loading and unloading cargo, sailing between ports, and performing maintenance. The initial state includes the location, capacity, and status of each tanker, as well as the demand and supply of oil and gas in different markets. The constraints include the availability of berths, the compatibility of cargo types, the weather conditions, the safety regulations, and the contractual obligations.

To solve this planning problem, an AI planner can use various techniques, such as heuristic search, constraint satisfaction, optimization, or machine learning. These techniques can help the AI planner to explore the large space of possible solutions, prune the infeasible or suboptimal ones, and find the best or near-optimal ones. The AI planner can also incorporate uncertainty and preferences into the planning process, to account for the variability and unpredictability of the real-world environment, as well as the trade-offs and priorities of different stakeholders.

The output of the AI planner is a plan that specifies which actions should be performed by each tanker at each time step. This plan can be used as a recommendation or a guideline for the human operators, who can then execute it or modify it according to their judgment and experience. Alternatively, the plan can be executed automatically by an autonomous system that controls the tankers.

Benefits and Challenges of AI Planning for Optimal Fleet Deployment of Tankers

Using AI planning for optimal fleet deployment of tankers can have several benefits, such as:

– Improving efficiency and profitability: By finding optimal or near-optimal solutions, AI planning can help operators to reduce fuel consumption, sailing time, waiting time, maintenance cost, and penalty fees, while increasing cargo volume, revenue, and customer satisfaction.
– Enhancing flexibility and adaptability: By incorporating uncertainty and preferences into the planning process, AI planning can help operators to cope with changing market conditions, weather conditions, customer demands, and operational constraints.
– Supporting decision making and learning: By providing explanations and feedback for the generated plans, AI planning can help operators to understand the rationale behind the recommendations, evaluate their performance, and learn from their outcomes.

However, using AI planning for optimal fleet deployment of tankers also poses some challenges, such as:

– Modeling complexity and scalability: The problem of optimal fleet deployment of tankers is a complex and dynamic problem that involves many variables, constraints, objectives, uncertainties, and preferences. Modeling such a problem in a way that is accurate, comprehensive, and tractable for AI planning is not trivial. Moreover, as the size and diversity of the fleet increase, so does the difficulty of finding optimal or near-optimal solutions in a reasonable time.
– Data quality and availability: The quality and availability of data are crucial for AI planning. Data are needed to define the initial state, update the state during execution, evaluate the outcomes of actions, and learn from experience. However, data may be incomplete, inaccurate, outdated, or inconsistent due to various sources of error or noise. Therefore, data validation and verification are necessary to ensure the reliability and validity of AI planning.
– Human-AI interaction and trust: The interaction and trust between human operators and AI planners are key factors for the success of AI planning. Human operators need to understand how AI planners work, what are their assumptions and limitations, how they handle uncertainty and preferences,
and how they communicate their plans. AI planners need to provide clear,
transparent,
and meaningful explanations for their plans,
as well as solicit feedback
and preferences from human operators.
Moreover,
human operators need to trust
the competence
and reliability
of AI planners,
and AI planners need to respect
the authority
and autonomy
of human operators.

Conclusion

AI planning is a promising technique
for developing a DSS
for optimal fleet deployment of tankers.
AI planning can help operators
to optimize the deployment of their tankers
to meet the demand and supply of different markets,
while minimizing the operational costs and risks.
However,
AI planning also faces some challenges
in terms of modeling complexity and scalability,
data quality and availability,
and human-AI interaction and trust.
Therefore,
further research and development
are needed to overcome these challenges
and to realize the full potential of AI planning
for optimal fleet deployment of tankers.

Works Cited

– Aloulou, Mohamed Akram, et al. “A decision support system for tanker fleet management.” Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review 111 (2018): 40-58.
– Chen, Bin, et al. “A survey of planning and scheduling applications in maritime transportation.” Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 82 (2019): 103247.
– Zhang, Shuai, et al. “A survey on AI planning and its applications to intelligent manufacturing.” Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 97 (2020): 103966.

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