The Econometric Institute is looking for a highly motivated PhD candidate for a joint project of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, TNO in The Hague, and the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA) in Den Helder
Job descriptionThis project addresses the effective design of a military supply logistics network, composed of transportation and communication links such as roads and rail, aerial drone routes, and nodes, such as temporary storage and transfer locations, aerial waypoints in an adversarial environment or warfighting situation. Kinetic threats can disrupt the supply by interrupting, damaging or destroying parts of this network (for instance by jamming aerial routes, or damaging transportation links), which are critical to the fighting forces. The visibility of the battlefield is increasing through satellite and drone imagery collection. A negative consequence to blue (belonging to “friendly” forces) supply networks is that the adversary can see and attack logistics networks.
The blue military supply logistics networks need to deal with this increased visibility by reducing their footprint. Reducing the footprint means that supply networks need to be heterogeneous in their transport means, consider alternative energy sources, and that the operations must be less predictable in their chosen transport means and locations. Thus, the goal is to explore reduced predictability while sustaining the units to be supplied.
The military supply logistics network faces uncertainty, which is dependent on the adversary and their means. The military supply logistics networks need to consider different scenarios, requiring the that it function well in warfighting and other scenarios. Since the available resources are limited, the key challenge is:
How to develop a resilient military supply logistics network in an adversarial / warfighting scenario, given limited resources?The security situation in the world has changed rapidly since February 2022. Increasing threats also mean a reorientation for Defence: a renewed focus on warfighting, after decades of emphasis on peacekeeping and stabilization activities, in addition to the ongoing civil support to national authorities. Operating in a warfighting scenario is subject to major changes, due to societal developments, technology, international cooperation, new threats and vulnerabilities, etc. This leads to a need for new logistical operational concepts for land, with exploration of air and marine operations. These new operational concepts also require a possible adaptation of the supporting logistics concepts for supply, where the role of civil and military cooperation is explicitly part of the analysis. These logistics concepts must be resilient: robust, adaptive, and flexible.
The research questions can be tackled by combining techniques from the domains of Integer programming, (Stochastic / Robust) Combinatorial Optimization, Game Theory, and Network Theory, as well as Artificial Intelligence. Potentially, scenarios could be simulated using agent-based, discrete-event, or other techniques.
Derived sub-questions are:
- What are appropriate goals and measures for assessing the risks, resilience, and effectiveness of a given military supply logistics concept in an adversarial and non-adversarial environment?
- What type of logistics supply chains (heterogenous supply networks that combine drones, and/ or land transportation) increase the resilience and survivability of the military supply logistics network in adversarial situations?
- How to model the military supply logistics concepts taking into account adversarial actions?
- What are optimal and resilient network topologies for a supply logistics concept in an adversarial context? What are the characteristics that determine their effectiveness? How does the choice of logistic concept change, depending on the number of personnel and assets and / or specific technologies deployed?