Active Target Defense Differential Game with a Fast Defender

TL;DR

This paper develops an optimal control strategy for a cooperative defense scenario where a faster defender intercepts an attacker missile to protect a target aircraft, extending previous models to include speed advantages.

Contribution

It introduces a differential game solution considering a faster defender, providing optimal heading angles for all players to maximize or minimize terminal separation.

Findings

Optimal heading angles for Target and Defender maximize separation.

Attacker's optimal strategy minimizes the distance to the Target.

Extended previous models to include faster Defender scenarios.

Abstract

This paper addresses the active target defense differential game where an Attacker missile pursues a Target aircraft. A Defender missile is fired by the Target's wingman in order to intercept the Attacker before it reaches the aircraft. Thus, a team is formed by the Target and the Defender which cooperate to maximize the distance between the Target aircraft and the point where the Attacker missile is intercepted by the Defender missile, while the Attacker tries to minimize said distance. The results shown here extend previous work. We consider here the case where the Defender is faster than the Attacker. The solution to this differential game provides optimal heading angles for the Target and the Defender team to maximize the terminal separation between Target and Attacker and it also provides the optimal heading angle for the Attacker to minimize the said distance.