The Travelling Salesman Problem in Maritime Surveillance – Techniques, Algorithms and Analysis

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) conducts maritime surveillance operations in order to deter non-state threats such as terrorism or illegal fishing. RAAF aircraft search various areas of ocean in order to classify as many ships as possible in the shortest possible time. This resembles the traditional Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) but with many interesting variations – the “cities” (ships) are moving, time windows and precedence constraints are present, a total route length limit is enforced and the position of ships is usually only discovered as the route is flown. While the TSP itself is well-studied, these variations are not, particularly when grouped together as is the case with maritime surveillance.