Application of Differential Dynamic Programming to an Air-to-Air Missile Guidance Problem Modeled as a Differential Game.

Abstract

An intercept problem between an air-to-air missile and an aircraft is modeled as a zero sum, free final time differential game which includes nonlinear dynamics and a payoff related to the kill probability. Previous research has shown that the currently used guidance scheme, proportional navigation, is nonoptimal in this type of problem formulation and a higher kill probability is possible with a guidance law based upon a differential game theory. A differential dynamic programming method is applied to the intercept problem in the search for a real-time solution. A convergence control procedure is introduced in an attempt to enhance the convergence of the typically long-time solution methods. The closed-loop guidance law which results is compared to both proportional navigation and some exact open-loop solutions by means of an off-line simulation on a CDC 6600 computer. The method does not yield a real-time solution for this problem and does not give improvement over a proportional navigation scheme. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1976
Accession Number
ADA034896

Entities

People

  • Albert H. Ferraris

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Algorithms
  • Computer Simulations
  • Dynamic Programming
  • Equations
  • Equations Of State
  • Game Theory
  • Guidance
  • Kill Probabilities
  • Miss Distance
  • Navigation
  • New Jersey
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Proportional Navigation
  • Simulations
  • Time Intervals
  • Trajectories

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Control Systems Engineering.
  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
  • Missile Defense Systems.