The Airlift Challenge seeks improved algorithms for planning and executing airlift operations in the face of dynamic disruptions. Participants compete by submitting OpenAI Gym-based agents that minimize delivery time and cost using reinforcement learning, optimization, heuristics, or other techniques.
An airplane flying in the sky – illustrative photo. Image credit: Kevin Woblick via Unsplash, free license
Overview
Airlifts demand the delivery of large sets of cargo into areas of need under tight deadlines. Yet, many obstacles are preventing timely delivery. Airports have limited capacity to process airplanes, thus limiting throughput and potentially creating bottlenecks. Weather disruptions can cause delays or force airplanes to re-route. Unexpected cargo may be staged for an urgent delivery.
This competition challenges participants to design agents that can plan and execute an airlift operation. Quick decision-making is needed to rapidly adjust plans in the face of disruptions along the delivery routes.
The decision-maker will also need to incorporate new cargo delivery requests that appear during the episode. The primary objective is to meet the specified deadlines, with a secondary goal of minimizing cost. Solutions can incorporate machine learning, optimization, path planning heuristics, or other techniques.
Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 06:59 AM EET, March 1, 2024.
Source: Challenge.gov