Aircraft Evaluation Using Stochastic Duels

Abstract

Our thesis presents a modeling paradigm that uses stochastic duels to evaluate the performance of fighter aircraft in one-on-one air combats. The main thrust distinguishing our work is the combination of stochastic models, kinematics, and flight theories to represent the dynamics of a one-on-one air duel between two opposing fighter aircraft. We consider the duel in two phases, starting from a beyond-visual-range engagement to a close-range dogfight. The main contribution of our research is a stochastic model that directly relates physical characteristics of the two aircraft to compute their mission-level performance. The model is able to capture sufficient fidelity of the air duel without losing its analytical tractability. We illustrate our model using a numerical example featuring two actual dissimilar fighter aircraft, followed by a sensitivity analysis using smart experimental design methods. Our analysis reveals that the engagement time at beyond-visual range, single shot kill probability, aircraft velocity, flight velocity during a dogfight, and the maximum load factor of an aircraft are influential in determining the win probability of each aircraft in an air duel.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2017
Accession Number
AD1046838

Entities

People

  • Jason W. Gay

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • California
  • Computational Science
  • Control Systems
  • Defense Systems
  • Differential Equations
  • Engineering
  • Equations
  • Experimental Design
  • Firing Rate
  • Game Theory
  • Mathematical Models
  • Probabilistic Models
  • Probability
  • Probability Distributions
  • Random Variables
  • Situational Awareness
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Military History / Militaries and War Studies