Aircraft pursuit-evasion problems with variable speeds (Q580209)

Aircraft pursuit-evasion encounters in a plane with variable speeds are analysed as a differential game. The paper starts with an overview of different approaches to air combat studies and then concentrates on the variable speed pursuit-evasion in the plane, as initiated amongst others by the current authors. The paper presents some of the highlights of this research; it is an overview. For many of the details the original papers should be consulted. After the introduction section two introduces the so-called extremal trajectory map (ETM), which provides a solution in the small. The state equations of both pursuer and evader are four dimensional (in a fixed coordinate system), the components being the two state coordinates, the Mach number and the heading. The controls are the throttle setting and the bank angle. The so-called canonical equations are decoupled (in terms of pursuer and evader) which implies that the ETM is essentially independent of role, adversary and capture radius and has an open-loop character. Section three discusses the construction of the ETM for realistic aircraft such as the model F-4C. Examples, figures and discussions are taken from previous papers by the same authors. Section four is mainly adresses to the feedback solution and the construction of game surfaces. Section five gives some examples of barriers and dispersal points.