Martin Lagerholm, Carsten Peterson and Bo Söderberg
Airline Crew Scheduling with Potts Neurons
Neural Computation 9, 1589-1599 (1997)

Abstract:
A Potts feedback neural network approach for finding good solutions to resource allocation problems with a non-fixed topology is presented. As a target application the airline crew scheduling problem is chosen. The topological complication is handled by means of a propagator defined in terms of Potts neurons. The approach is tested on artificial random problems tuned to resemble real-world conditions. Very good results are obtained for a variety of problem sizes. The computer time demand for the approach only grows like (number of flights)^3. A realistic problem typically is solved within minutes, partly due to a prior reduction of the problem size, based on an analysis of the local arrival/departure structure at the single airports.

LU TP 96-6