Cooperative Defense Strategy for Active Aircraft Protection Considering Launch Time of Defense Missile

Abstract

A high performance military aircraft can equip with a defending missile system for active protection against an attack missile. Once the aircraft launches the defense missile, the engagement situation becomes a three-player game consisting of aircraft, attacking missile, and defense missile. Although several strategies for cooperation between the aircraft and the defense missile have been suggested, little attention has been paid to the early phase of the engagement. In this study, a cooperative defense strategy considering both launch and boost phases of the defense missile is proposed based on geometric approach. The defense team is assumed to have no advantages on speed and maneuverability over the adversary in a practical sense. The strategy is derived to provide kinematic advantages to the defense team under the disadvantages before it enters the end-game phase. Launch time of the defense missile is numerically determined by the desired collision geometry. Numerical simulation shows that the launch time is crucial to form an advantageous geometry, and therefore the interception performance of the defense missile can be improved by adjusting the launch time.