Dynamical Systems in Elliptical Pursuit and Evasion

TL;DR

This paper analyzes pursuit-evasion dynamics in elliptical versus circular scenarios, deriving a dynamical system and establishing conditions for capture or convergence, with explicit bounds and stability analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dynamical system framework for elliptical pursuit problems and characterizes stability and capture conditions, extending prior circular case analyses.

Findings

Pursuer captures evader in finite time if faster.

Explicit upper bound for capture time derived.

System converges to a periodic solution if pursuer is slower.

Abstract

This paper investigates the difference between the circular and elliptical cases in one-on-one pursuit and evasion problems. Using the simultaneous differential equation derived by Barton and Eliezer, we derive a dynamical system based on the assumption that the shape of the pursuer's trajectory is unaffected by the evader's speed. The dynamical system involves the angular difference between the velocity vectors of the players and their separation distance. When the evader orbits a circle, the dynamical system is autonomous with an asymptotically stable equilibrium point. By contrast, if the evader orbits an ellipse, the dynamical system becomes non-autonomous and lacks an equilibrium point. To handle the singularity at capture, we reformulate the system using a complex variable that includes information about the logarithmic distance and the angular difference. We establish two main results: when the pursuer is faster than the evader, the pursuer captures the evader in finite time, and we derive an explicit upper bound for the capture time; when the pursuer is slower, the system possesses a unique periodic solution to which all trajectories converge globally and asymptotically.