Cooperative Missile Guidance for Active Defense of Air Vehicles

In air combat, an active countermeasure against an attacking missile homing into a Target aircraft entails the launch of a defending missile. The Target is protected by the Defender, which aims to intercept the Attacker before the latter reaches the Target aircraft. A differential game is presented where the Target-Defender team strives to maximize the terminal separation between the Target and the Attacker at the time instant where the Attacker is intercepted by the Defender, whereas the Attacker strives to minimize the said separation. This paper discusses the case where the Defender is endowed with a positive capture radius. Optimal strategies for the three agents are derived and simulation examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.