Assignment notes: stage 2

CSE3301: SAR (C.Twardy)
April 9, 2001
Target date: Friday April

The main goal of stage 2 is to find the best allocation of existing resources. If your resources are just a set number of searcher-hours for identical searchers, the allocation should be uniformly optimal, as outlined in Frost. However, I'm going to complicate things slightly, and move to a simulation environment for testing.

That said, the first requirement is to handle the case of one resource type for a bunch of identical equal-area segments.

Overall, stage 2 should do three things which strongly extend it towards stage 3.

1. First, it should provide optimal allocation of mixed resources (specified by speed and sweep width).
2. Second, it should provide a robust interactive user interface for non-batch mode.
3. Third, it should provide a batch mode with standard output, and error (plus return code) for being called from a simulator environment with command-line arguments.

Current specs

1. General requirements: run in interactive or batch mode.
   • Interactive mode should allow users to enter files or values, or modify existing values. If ``'' is not given on the command line, the program should go to interactive mode, even if filenames are specified. (It should still read the files.) At minimum it should allow users to specify-load POA, view initial and current POA, add-delete-modify-view-load resources, request resource allocation advice, apply advised allocation, specify resource allocation (with advised values displayed or defaulted), and save current state.
   • Batch mode should expect command-line input, and output to STDOUT and STDERR. It should have three modes:
     • : accept -Aareafile -Rresourcefile. Output first the assignments and then the predicted POAs in the format noted below.
     • : accept -Aareafile -Rresourcefile -Sassignfile. Output first the , in the format noted below.
     • : As far as STDOUT, runs like -advice. It's here because originally I thought -advice would only generate the assignment. But then I realized most users would want the predicted POA as well. If you automatically save the state of the search before exiting, save the updated POA table for -auto, but not for -advice.
   • :
     • $<$ASSIGN$>$the assignments in the assignment file format$<$/ASSIGN$>$. Put after each line, including the tags.
     • $<$POA$>$the new POAs in area file format$<$/POA$>$. Put after each line, including the tags.
     • all errors to STDERR
     • a return value of 0 for success. Other codes are up to you.
2. Area file: On each LINE of the file, separated by commas:
   • Area number: an integer from 1-100 with the special values -1 for RestOfWorld and -2 for Base Camp.
   • Location: an (x,y) pair of 4-digit integer strings 0000 - 9999 specifying the center of the area. The integers will be UTM coordinates: 4 digits by 4 digits.
   • Polygon Boundaries: ((Corner-1-UTM-x, UTM y)(corner-2)...(corner-n))
     For stage 2, I'll stick with North-south rectangles, and I'll make sure the areas are well-defined and precisely adjacent. Rectangles won't all be the same size.
   • Travel time to area, in minutes. Integer.
   • Altitude in meters. An integer. (No change.)
   • Terrain: an integer. (no change)
   • Vegetation: an integer between 0 and 100, representing density of plant cover. (no change)
   • Initial POA (float 0..100).

3. Resources file
   • Resource number (positive integer)
   • Resource type (unquoted string)
   • POD (float 0..100). In case we use it later.
   • ESW in meters (positive float)
   • Speed in km per hour (positive float)
   • Number of resource-hours available (positive integer)
   • (Correction table)(unspecified as yet; can ignore for now)
   I will test with files with single resources and files with several resources of different abilities.

4. Assignment file

   resourceNum, area, searcher-hours allocated

5. Advanced Task Scheduling:
   Still not implemented.

6. Handing it in:
   • cse3301-sar.stage2.[AGM $\vert$ VLPR $\vert$ Lee].tar
   • compile the executable to .
   • include ``Makefile'' so just typing ``make'' gets a working allocate.
   • Email it to me by April 27. With luck I'll test it over the weekend, but probably it will take 9 days.

7. Testing
   As soon as you have the input and output formats working, send me the code and I will test it on the simulation script. That way we can both be sure everything is working!

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