Abstract

The aircraft loading problem is a real-world combinatorial optimisation problem highly constrained. This weight must be distributed to keep the centre of gravity within speci ed limits. Moreover, an aircraft has usually several cargo compart- ments with speci c contours and structural limitations such as oor loading, com- bined load limits and cumulative load limitations. Finally, some shipments are par- ticularly restrictive to transport, like dangerous goods, live animals and perishable goods. This paper is concerned with the incorporation of these latter constraints in a mixed integer linear program for the problem of loading a set of Unit Load- ing Devices and bulk into an aircraft. Experimental results show that our method achieves optimal solutions within only few seconds. Peer reviewed