Thesis opportunities


	T h e s i s o p p o r t u n i t i e s a t C a r m e n 2 0 0 1

	At Carmen Systems we have a number of thesis projects every year. We firmly believe that a thesis project is an excellent way for students to experience working in a professional I.T. company. Past projects have often been very successful and many of the people employed at Carmen began as thesis students. During 2001 we will have a few new openings for thesis students. The subjects that are finally chosen for investigation will depend both on the interests of the applicants and the priorities of Carmen. The projects below are suggestions and can be altered to better suit your interests. Please feel free to contact us with your own suggestions. Who are we looking for You are aiming towards a Master of Science or a Bachelor of Science and have started your last year of study. (Preferably you will only have your thesis work left to complete when you start at Carmen.) Your grades should be above average. The company's working language is English and you should therefore be capable of both speaking and writing English without difficulties. Your chosen subject is probably Computer Science & Engineering or another related subject. Applying for a thesis at Carmen You should begin by sending a letter in which you introduce yourself. Include your grades, certificates that could be of relevance and any references that you have. If you have a friend with whom you wish to do your thesis work then please include their details as well - but you should both send separate applications. Send your application to: Thesis Opportunities Carmen Systems Odinsgatan 9 411 03 Göteborg or email: [email protected] General terms A thesis student at Carmen will have the opportunity to work in our premises at Odinsgatan in Göteborg. Our powerful computer workstations and all other necessary equipment will be at your disposal. You will have an appointed mentor throughout your project. If it becomes necessary during the project for you to visit any of our airline clients then this will be possible. You will be employed, with a small monthly salary, at Carmen during the project.



	S u g g e s t e d i d e a s f o r a t h e s i s p r o j e c t


	*Modelling Projects* Simulating delays and disruptions The modern air traveller faces an increasing amount of frustration due to flight delays and cancellations. Sometimes these delays build up as one delayed flight forces the delay of others. It would be very useful for airlines to anticipate the effects of disruptions when creating the flight schedules in order to minimize these kinds of problems. It should be possible to test the robustness of various schedules to include effects such as crew illness, flight cancellations, and even airport closures (amongst others). The project requires understanding the different types of disruptions and their frequencies. Based on this a computer model should be developed to generate a set of simulated disruptions and test how well any particular flight schedule performs in terms of robustness. Contact us: [email protected] Preferential bidding concepts To influence their schedules the crew members of each airline can bid on certain properties of their schedules (days off, late start, days away from home, desired layovers, etc.). The framework to handle these bids must handle many aspects (fairness, individual control, easy to understand, easy to use, etc.). Study our present framework and suggest and implement improvements. Contact us: [email protected] Self-adjusting optimisation scripts To solve some of our optimization problems we use clusters of basic optimization methods. The order and configuration of these basic methods is today static. You will make it possible to automatically generate these clusters depending on the properties of the optimization problem to be solved. Contact us: [email protected] General aspects of tracking rules and constraints The period from when the crew schedule is published until the flights have been carried out is called tracking. During the tracking phase special duty agreements apply, with special restrictions on how to change an already published schedule. Compile/implement a generic model of these restrictions and try to find a generic model of how to solve the tracking problems automatically. Contact us: [email protected] Web-based planning interface Allow a customer to log in on the Carmen web page and get a preliminary pairing solution (basic crew traveling patterns). The web-interface shall allow the customer to set legal and quality aspects and to view and analyze the solution. Contact us: [email protected]




	*Carmen's Modelling Language (Rave)* To facilitate customization of all our products we have developed an application specific language to define work and rest time regulations, cost functions, etc. Within the scope of improving this language there could be several opportunities. Compiling for constraint logic The rule system currently generates code to be used in a particular optimizer. At Carmen we have a project that investigates optimization using constraint logic programming. To be able to benefit from this, the rule code would need to be compiled in a different way. The project is to make such a compiler. Contact us: [email protected] Improved functionality (one or many) Extend language with pattern matching is used in functional languages like Haskell. Allow (limited) recursive constructs. Database connections. Special syntactic construct for a special rule category called vertical constraints. Contact us: [email protected] Debugger Currently the possibilities to debug rule code are pretty rudimentary. Having a debugger for RAVE would be a great asset when developing RAVE code. It might be enough to be able to visualise the calculation tree of values. The task consists of both modifying the system to produce the necessary data to display, and designing a GUI to present this data. Contact us: [email protected]




	*Carmen's Report Generator* The Carmen applications are enhanced with a special report generator. The report generator is controlled with a specially designed programming language. Design a graphical interface for report crating Contact us: [email protected]




	*Optimization Tools* All Carmen products contain a number of optimization tools. Repair methods based on Constraint Programming (CP) Repair methods using CP techniques have proved very efficient in different scheduling problems arising in real world applications. One example is the scheduling of the observations performed by the Hubble space telescope. In this project, these methods should be applied to the repair of solutions in airline equipment and crew scheduling. In the ESPRIT project Parrot (Parallel crew rostering), such methods are planned to be applied to the crew assignment problem. Based on that, the applicability for other problems is to be studied. Contact us: [email protected] Modular network implementation in Carmen Fleet Assignment Carmen Fleet Assignment optimization is based on a multi-commodity network flow optimization. The thesis project consists in testing the opportunity of using a dedicated network for each commodity compared to a generic network implementation. The project could then be generalized to other multi-commodity network flow problems at Carmen. Contact us: [email protected] Implementation of a large Integer Linear Program in Carmen Fleet Assignment Carmen Fleet Assignment optimization is based on a multi-commodity network flow optimization solved by a Lagrangean Relaxation of the coupling constraints. The project consists in investigating an alternate resolution technique: it primarily focuses on the implementation and the resolution of a single Integer Linear Program that models the problem. That ILP would be solved by commercial software, and extensive test comparisons would be done. Depending on the person's interest, an important part of the project could be dedicated in designing and implementing a suitable branching algorithm in order to get an integer solution. Contact us: [email protected]




	*Real-Time Projects* Event generator In Carmen Tracking, a real-time system to handle problems in the operation (recover crew and fleet from delays, snowstorm, fog, technical breakdown, etc) it is crucial that the system can handle large data volumes. It is also important that the planners can practice these conditions in a simulator environment. To be able to do both large-scale data testing and simulations, an event generator that makes it possible to simulate real conditions must be created. The event generator shall be possible to set on "delay 20 flights per hours", "delay all flights with 1-2 hours", "cancel all flights on base XXX during 12:00-16:00", etc Contact us: [email protected] Crew Control GUI When given very short time to repair a problem it is very important that the GUI supports the user by presenting the minimum relevant amount of information. A GUI implementation already exists together with a prototype. Continue the work on making the GUI fit the Crew Control (the final hours of the airline operation) phase. Contact us: [email protected]