Modelling Radar Tracking Features and Low Observability Motion Planning for UCAV

Motion planning for unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) penetration in the presence of radar-guided surface to air missiles (SAMs) is studied. Firstly, the integrated model, involving nonlinear dynamic model and radar cross section (RCS) of UCAV, detection and tracking model of radar, is built. Four aspects of radar tracking features and their utilizations for UCAV penetration are discussed and modeled. Second, two manners of low observability motion planning formulations are proposed, which are multi-phase motion planning with detected probability (MP-DP) and multi-phase motion planning with detected probability and radial velocity (MP-DP&RV). Third, the pseudospectral multi-phase optimal control based motion planning algorithm is proposed, which could effectively solve the aforementioned problems. The results of the examples illustrate the multi-phase motion planning method can finely utilize the radar tracking features to optimize the comprehensive efficiency of penetration, especially the MP-DP&RV can reduce the exposure time significantly.