<title>Planning and scheduling virtual training for U.S. military units in a resource-constrained environment</title>

Abstract

The United States Army is presently developing a new family of high technology, computer-based training facilities called the Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (CATT). The first of these will be the Close Combat Tactical Trainer (CCTT) where soldiers from armored and mechanized forces at battalion and below will conduct realistic training in manned modules using semi- automated forces (SAF) that operate on a digitized, virtual battlefield. The major scheduling tasks for planning a days' training include selecting training scenarios, scheduling the scenarios throughout the planning horizon, and scheduling training resources for conducting each training scenario. CCTT scheduling is complicated by several factors. Multiple scenarios may be scheduled simultaneously, training scenario duration varies by scenario, and resources for conducting each scenario vary by scenario type and may vary within a scenario type as well. This paper presets a heuristic approach to the CCTT scheduling problem. Scheduling results from the automated scheduling system demonstrate that the heuristic provides 'good' training schedules in a timely manner.