Air Vehicle Optimal Trajectories for Minimization of Radar Exposure

This study addresses the problem of analyzing the single vehicle path planning problem for radar exposure minimization. The calculus of Variations and optimal control are applied to formulate the cost function and numerical algorithms are used to solve for the optimal paths. Cost sensitivity to path length is analyzed for flight against one radar; a second radar is then included in the formulation and the optimal path for flight between the radars is found for cases of equal and unequal radar power. The costs of the optimal path, direct path, and Voronoi diagram-generated paths are compared. Results indicate low sensitivity of the cost to suboptimal paths for flight versus one radar; against two radars, approaching the Voronoi curves optimally from the endpoints ma be feasible for on-line use.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH is the author of 'Air Vehicle Optimal Trajectories for Minimization of Radar Exposure', published 2001 under ISBN 9781423530640 and ISBN 1423530640.