Pursuit and evasion conflict for three players based on differential game theory

A conflict of three players including an Attacker, a Defender and a Target with bounded controls is discussed based on the differential game theories in which the Target and Defender use optimal pursuit strategy. The current approach singles out the miss distance as the outcome of the conflict. In order to guarantee the Attacker accomplish the evasion and pursuit task, a new optimal guidance law is derived and the feasible conditions are analyzed. Before the engagement time between the Defender and Attacker, the Attacker uses the derived control effort to guarantee that the evasion distance from the Defender is safe and the ZEM distance between the Attacker and the Target is the smallest value within the permitted control range for the Attacker successfully reaching to a safety area at the interception time. After that engagement time, the Attacker uses the optimal one-to-one guidance law to accomplish the pursuit task.