Low observability path planning for an unmanned air vehicle using mixed integer linear programming

Detection of an unmanned air vehicle by radar is dependent on many variables including range, altitude, and relative orientation. Given a radar location and appropriate model for the likelihood of detection, a path plan can be created for an unmanned air vehicle which constrains the probability of detection. In this paper such an approach is taken using a linearized detection model. The detection model and the unmanned air vehicle's dynamics are represented as a linear program subject to mixed integer constraints. This mixed integer linear program is then solved with commercial software which has been traditionally used by the operations research community. This approach searches for all feasible solutions and produces the best path plan based on the user specified parameters.