RANGE-LIMITED UAV TRAJECTORY USING TERRAIN MASKING UNDER RADAR DETECTION RISK

摘要

Military manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may perform missions in contested airspace, where survival of the vehicle requires avoidance of hostile radar coverage. This research sought to determine optimum flight-path routes that make maximum utilization of UAV terrain-masking opportunities and flight range capability to avoid radar detection. The problem was formulated as one of constrained optimization in three dimensions; advantageous solutions were identified using Algorithm A*. Topographical features were exploited by the algorithm to avoid radar detection. The model included provisions for preferred altitude ranges, adjustable aircraft climb- and descent- rate envelopes, movement costs based on fractional detection probability, radar horizon masking, and simulated radar cross-section lookup tables.