Deceptive Dynamic Target Assignment for a Small Group of Vehicles Facing an Outnumbering Set of Targets

The design of a target assignment strategy is proposed in the context of a small group of vehicles engaged against a large set of static targets. The targets are assumed distributed randomly along a prescribed route. The strategy relies on the minimization of a quadratic cost that is an indicator of the total energy consumed by the group. The proposed target assignment strategy is designed for groups of two and three pursuer vehicles, leading to sequences of 2 times 2 and 3 times 3 confrontations, respectively. The cost function is based on the quantification of the neighboring space of each vehicle. Such modelling involves potential conflicts, which are solved by the introduction of a simple stochastic process whose function is to achieve a certain amount of unpredictability from the perspective of the enemy targets. Measurements of relative distances and line-of-sight (LOS) angles between neighboring vehicles are required. Noisy measurements may lead to inconsistent utility matrices in the confrontations. Thus, a probabilistic test is included in the target assignment strategy to activate communications between two neighbors whenever a confidence threshold is violated. Numerical examples show that the proposed scheme compares advantageously to a strategy that randomizes each action and to a law that minimizes the cost of confrontation without accounting for past moves