Modularity in military vehicle designs enables on-base assembly, disassembly, and reconfiguration of vehicles, which can be beneficial in promoting fleet adaptability and life cycle cost savings. To properly manage the fleet operation and to control the resupply, demand prediction, and scheduling process, this paper illustrates an agent-based approach customized for highly modularized military vehicle fleets and studies the feasibility and flexibility of modularity for various mission scenarios. Given deterministic field demands with operation stochasticity, we compare the performance of a modular fleet to a conventional fleet in equivalent operation strategies and also compare fleet performance driven by heuristic rules and optimization. Several indicators are selected to quantify the fleet performance, including operation costs, total resupplied resources, and fleet readiness. When the model is implemented for military Joint Tactical Transport System (JTTS) mission, our results indicate that fleet modularity can reduce total resource supplies without significant losses in fleet readiness. The benefits of fleet modularity can also be amplified through a real-time optimized operation strategy. To highlight the feasibility of fleet modularity, a parametric study is performed to show the impacts from working capacity on modular fleet performance. Finally, we provide practical suggestions of modular vehicle designs based on the analysis and other possible usage.

中文翻译：

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一种优化模块化车队运营的基于代理的方法

军用车辆设计中的模块化支持车辆的基地组装、拆卸和重新配置，这有助于提高车队的适应性和生命周期成本的节省。为了正确管理车队运营并控制补给、需求预测和调度过程，本文阐述了一种为高度模块化的军用车队定制的基于代理的方法，并研究了模块化在各种任务场景下的可行性和灵活性。鉴于具有操作随机性的确定性现场需求，我们将模块化车队的性能与等效运营策略中的传统车队的性能进行了比较，并比较了启发式规则和优化驱动的车队性能。选择了几个指标来量化车队的绩效，包括运营成本、总补给资源和舰队战备状态。当该模型用于军事联合战术运输系统 (JTTS) 任务时，我们的结果表明，舰队模块化可以减少总资源供应，而不会显着降低舰队战备状态。车队模块化的好处也可以通过实时优化的运营策略得到放大。为了突出车队模块化的可行性，进行了一项参数研究，以显示工作能力对模块化车队性能的影响。最后，我们根据分析和其他可能的用途提供模块化车辆设计的实用建议。我们的结果表明，车队模块化可以减少总资源供应，而不会显着降低车队的战备状态。车队模块化的好处也可以通过实时优化的运营策略得到放大。为了突出车队模块化的可行性，进行了一项参数研究，以显示工作能力对模块化车队性能的影响。最后，我们根据分析和其他可能的用途提供模块化车辆设计的实用建议。我们的结果表明，车队模块化可以减少总资源供应，而不会显着降低车队的战备状态。车队模块化的好处也可以通过实时优化的运营策略得到放大。为了突出车队模块化的可行性，进行了一项参数研究，以显示工作能力对模块化车队性能的影响。最后，我们根据分析和其他可能的用途提供模块化车辆设计的实用建议。