International Innovation In Artificial Intelligence

Subcontracted by British Aerospace, AIAI were involved in part of a larger project for EUMETSAT, the European agency responsible for meteorological satellites. Our role was helping in the specification and prototyping of the scheduling component. After an initial feasibility study it was decided to prototype the system using PECOS, an object-oriented constraint programming tool. This approach allowed rapid development while retaining the flexibility to make changes as the problem specification evolved. A typical problem that the EUMETSAT scheduler has to deal with consists of some 1300 activities over a 14 day period. Activities to be scheduled include regular fixed activities (e.g.