Operations Research Tools Applied to Scheduling in Observatory Operations

The problem of scheduling operations in astronomical observatories has been tackled in various ad-hoc ways. Although it is a central task in an observatory’s operation, which affects the utilization and throughput of observations, extensive manual intervention is still required in almost all observatories. Moreover, little resources have been invested in optimizing the scheduling’s efficiency, which, in the case of large-scale observatories like ALMA or VLT, might result in significant cost-effective improvements. This issue gains importance since observatory operations have increased in complexity, with plenty of sources of uncertainty.

This issue has a lot in common with problems typically found in other industries. Operations research tools have been used here to develop solutions for many related topics, from scheduling production plans to routing delivery vehicles. These tools and methodologies have been a source of efficiency, allowing organizations to do more with limited resources.

This project aims to connect these two worlds, kickstarting and fostering interdisciplinary research between operations research and astronomy operations by tackling one of the most relevant problems: optimal operations scheduling. The focus will be to develop and apply operations research tools to construct decision support systems that can help managers improve efficiency and utilization.

This project is funded by grant ASTRO20-0058 from ANID and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Radio Telescope.

Project Team:

• Lead Researcher: Rodrigo A. Carrasco
• Associate Researchers: Andrés Jordán, Vincent Suc, Rafael Brahm
• Engineers: Benjamín Bastidas, Constanza Lorca
• Students: Looking for motivated students to work in this topic!