Cooperative active defense strategy via differential game theory and distributed estimations for multiple air vehicles

A cooperative active defense strategy via differential game theory and distributed estimations is proposed. To improve the survivability of the aerospace vehicles against the attacker, multiple defenders are considered in the proposed active defense strategy. Firstly, the nonlinear engagement equations between the target, multiple defenders, and the attacking missile are presented. Since the dynamic characteristics of each agent can be approximately described by arbitrary order linear system equations, the nonlinear engagement equations are linearized. Then, the cooperative active defense strategy is presented via the differential gaming theory. And distributed estimations with merely bearing information for implementation of the proposed active defense strategy is proposed, which reduces the onboard payload greatly. Finally, the effectiveness of the method is verified by simulation.