Engagement Tactics for Two Missiles Against an Optimally Maneuvering Aircraft

The engagement tactics for two missiles to attack an aircraft are studied. A tail chase scenario between two aircraft is assumed where the attacker tries to kill the evader with two missiles, while the evader employs optimal maneuvers for avoiding two missiles. The algorithm to solve this optimal control problem is first developed. For the aircraft, in order to simultaneously maximize the miss distances against two missiles, a special type of performance index is introduced and the problems are solved by the solver based on the steepest ascent method. The result shows that the aircraft optimal maneuvers are divided into three patterns. Next, the optimal timing for the attacker to launch the two missiles, in order to minimize both miss distances against the aircraft is studied. The effect of their taking trajectory shaping is also studied.