Development and testing of the intercept primitives for planar UAV engagement

With the advance in technologies and applications involving unmanned aerial systems cooperation among the autonomous agents within such an unmanned system as well as preparedness for responding to adversarial threat to such a system has become of pivotal importance. A multiphase operational scenario of such cooperative and adversarial engagement, motivated by manned aerial engagement scenarios, is presented in this paper. A Proportional navigation-based integrated guidance methodology is proposed and investigated as a candidate strategy for intercept primitives in such realistic multi-phase UAV engagements. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed guidance strategy for an UAV in such an engagement. Finally, implementation of these guidance laws in a waypoint-based manner, well suited for use in modern-day autopilots of UAVs, is demonstrated in software-in-the-loop simulations, further accelerating future live-fly capabilities for autonomous aerial engagements.