Abstract
In an era of preparation for potential future conflict, it is of utter importance to uncover methods of amplifying crewed aircraft capability with novel un-crewed systems. To further that goal, this work considers a two-agent scenario of a faster, unmanned turn-constrained pursuer with an engagement zone (EZ) and a non-maneuvering mobile evader. The pursuer aims to capture an evader with its circular EZ. The pursuer’s EZ is dynamic and shifts as a function of the evader’s velocity vector in both magnitude and direction. Using nonlinear optimal control techniques, the optimal trajectory and minimum time to engage the evader are determined for various pursuer initial headings and positions through MATLAB simulation. The results build a control strategy given the scenario, with analytic solution validation. Results lay a foundation to model pursuer-evader capture scenarios with a dynamic EZ, leading to general guidelines for real-time control strategies. This work culminates in an attempt to find an algorithm that would yield a dispersal surface in any pursuer/evader scenario and establish a comparative angle for the pursuer to guarantee optimal turn direction to engage the evader in minimum time.