Cooperative Intercept Guidance of Multiple Aircraft with a Lure Role Included

When threatened by a pursuer, an evading aircraft launches two defenders to accomplish a cooperative evasion, constituting a four-aircraft interception engagement. Under the assumption that the pursuing aircraft adopts the augmented proportional guidance law and first-order dynamics, a cooperative intercept mathematical model with an intercept angle constraint is established, allowing for the cooperative maneuvering of the evader. Based on the differential linear matrix inequality (DLMI), a controller design method of input and output finite time stability (IO-FTS) is proposed and applied to the aircraft’s cooperative intercept scenario. A cooperation performance analysis is carried out for two cases: (1) two defenders intercept the pursuer with various intercept angle constraints, and (2) the evader acts in a lure role to cooperate with two defenders. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method of controller design has the ability to guarantee that the two defenders intercept the pursuer at the preassigned intercept angles. The cooperative intercept scenario with a lure role is shown to be a very effective method for reducing the maximum required acceleration for defenders, which confirms the availability and advantage of cooperation. The strong adaptability and robustness of the cooperative guidance law with respect to various initial launch conditions is also verified.