[DMANET] PhD studentship at the University of Edinburgh on Mixed Integer Programming applied to aerospace system arquitecture

There is a Ph.D. studentship starting in September/October 2014 at the
Operational Research group at the School of Mathematics at the
University of Edinburgh on the topic "Mixed Integer Programming
techniques dedicated to the robust design of aerospace system
architecture". The deadline for applications is 31 January 2014. The
expected starting date is September/October 2014 and the duration of the
studentship is 3.5 years. Details on the procedure can be found at
http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/pg/prosp.shtml. For details on the case,
please contact Dr Sergio García Quiles (sergio.garcia-quiles@ed.ac.uk).

1. Context : EADS Innovation Works

EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defense and related services that
designs and manufactures aircrafts, helicopters, launchers or
satellites. It is the mother company of AIRBUS, ASTRIUM and EUROCOPTER.
The research and development activities of EADS are done through a
global transnational network of technical capability centres, called the
EADS Innovation Works (IW).

EADS IW covers the skills and technology fields that are identified as
strategic for EADS. These activities cover a wide spectrum of
technological domains; they are targeted at the different levels in the
value chain and structured according to the timelines of short
term/committed programmes, medium term/optional programmes and long
term/advanced concepts for the introduction of new technologies into the
company products and processes.

EADS IW has two main sites in Suresnes (Paris) and Ottobrunn (Munich)
and employs approximately 600 people including doctorates and
undergraduate interns. Proximity centres are maintained in Toulouse,
Nantes, Hamburg, Bremen and Stade to support knowledge transfer to
Business Units in these locations. In addition, EADS Innovation Works
operates centres in Singapore, and Newport and Filton in the UK, and has
also launched a centre in Getafe (Madrid), and most recently in
Bangalore, India, and California, US. A liaison office operates in
Moscow, which facilitates relations with Russia scientific institutes.

2. Department of Applied Mathematics

The Ph.D. thesis will be done in collaboration with the Applied
Mathematics department of EADS IW. This department counts more than 20
researchers and engineers working on several topics that are of critical
importance for EADS aerospace applications. Among these topics, one can
mention: uncertainties propagation, probabilistic modelling, numerical
optimization, numerical analysis, high performance computing, diagnostic
and pronostic.

3. Towards Mixed Integer Programming activity at EADS IW

Over the last ten years, some very good knowledge and capabilities have
been developed in continuous optimization (non-linear programming
essentially) in this department and successfully demonstrated on
industrial applications (aerodynamics, electromagnetism, acoustics...).
Today there is an ever increasing demand from the design offices for
taking into account discrete variables in their optimization processes.
For this reason, it is important to develop knowledge and capabilities
around this topic (Mixed Integer Programming, MIP). Attention will be
paid on mathematical formulation, modelling formulation and link to
relevant tools.

4. Ph.D. thesis: Mixed Integer Programming techniques dedicated to the
robust design of aerospace system architecture

The objective of the Ph.D. thesis is to contribute to consolidate the
expertise in MIP and demonstrate it on representative industrial
applications. The first year will be devoted to a comprehensive
bibliographic survey on Mixed Integer Programming. A particular
attention will be paid on the following sub-topics:

1. Large scale issues, in terms of number of variables and constraints.
2. Non linearity of the objective function and constraints.
3. Model of sensitivity analysis for discrete variables.
4. Robustness issues (how to qualify the robustness of the solution of a
MIP problem).

As it is very important for us to integrate in our products the
state-of-the-art optimization technologies, this comprehensive study
should establish the theoretical and technological maturity of all the
methods and their ability to be deployed efficiently into an industrial
context. For the technologies that are not still mature, the study
should provide recommendations in terms of research axis to develop. In
addition, all the methods that will be described by the study will be
illustrated by representative "academic" software test-cases.

The second and third year will be devoted to the study of the industrial
application, i.e., the optimization of the cockpit system architecture.

The first step will be dedicated to the writing of the general
formulation of the underlying MIP problem. The driving idea of the Ph.D.
is to address successively the four previous sub-topics on the
industrial test cases in order to make the problem and consequently the
formulation progressively harder. Of course, a key question will be to
determine how the algorithms proposed during the first year and tested
on simple academic test cases can be re-used or adapted when dealing
with an industrial application.

The second year will be dedicated to large scale and non-linearity
issues. The third year will be dedicated to sensitivity analysis and
robustness issues: it is very important for industrial applications to
be able to provide information about the level of margins of an
optimized solution.
The Ph.D. student will be located in the School of Mathematics at the
University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Dr Sergio García
Quiles. There will be regular jointly remote meetings with Dr Vassili
Srithammavanh as well as face-to-face meetings in Paris (around two per
year).
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