Pareto-optimality for lethality and collateral risk in the airstrike multi-objective problem

Steven P. Dillenburger, Jeremy D. Jordan and Jeffery K. Cochran

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2019, vol. 70, issue 7, 1051-1064

Abstract: The recent surge in attacks on terrorist organizations within heavily populated areas has brought precision airstrikes to the forefront of discussion topics among partnering nations. In this paper, we present a quick algorithm for accurately creating the Pareto-optimal frontier in the multi-objective airstrike problem. This algorithm, which leverages off specific attributes of lethality and collateral risk, is shown to routinely outperform differential evolution and enumeration algorithms. Once Pareto optimal solutions are found, they can quickly be converted to solutions for the associated goal-programming and weighted sum scalarization problems. The choice of damage function greatly affects the expected lethality and collateral risk in an airstrike underscoring the need for accurate estimation of weapons effects. Notably, the cookie-cutter damage function underestimates collateral risk while overstating lethality in comparison to other damage functions. In addition, we demonstrate that differing guidelines or damage functions significantly alters the optimal location of the optimal aim point in this targeting problem. The methodology presented greatly improves upon existing work in this field, thus ensuring effective precision airstrikes while maximizing civilian safety.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01605682.2018.1487818 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjorxx:v:70:y:2019:i:7:p:1051-1064

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjor20

DOI: 10.1080/01605682.2018.1487818

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Operational Research Society is currently edited by Tom Archibald

More articles in Journal of the Operational Research Society from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().