Optimization of an Autonomous Weapon System´s Operating Characteristic

Optimal employment of autonomous wide area search munitions or unmanned aerial vehicles is considered. The air vehicle searches a battle space for stationary targets in the presence of false targets and/or clutter. Control problems are formulated to achieve optimal scheduling of the control variables P _TR, the probability of target report, which is a reflection of the sensor´s threshold setting, and Q, the area coverage rate. These optimal control problem formulations yield solutions that maximize the probability of target attack, and constraints to also satisfy hard bounds on the probability of false target attacks may also be applied. Analysis has shown that the optimal solutions are sensitive to the particular relationship between the autonomous target recognition module´s receiver operating characteristic parameter, c , and area coverage rate, Q . In this paper the relationship is developed from first principles for both passive and active sensors, and the optimal P _TR and Q schedules are obtained.