Singular Trajectories in the Two Pursuer One Evader Differential Game

M. Pachter, A. Von Moll, E. Garcia, D. Casbeer, D. Milutinović

Published in 2019 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems, 2019

The Two Cutters and Fugitive Ship game posed by Isaacs is revisited again. We discuss and analyze the singular configuration of this two-pursuer one-evader differential game. This paper addresses the question of whether or not either player has the ability to exploit the dispersal surface. Specifically, we in- vestigate the case where the Evader effectively stands still (e.g., by dithering in a small neighborhood). We show that the canonical optimal pursuit policy yields chattering in the discrete-time version of the game. As the timestep approaches zero, the capture time approaches the Value of the game, and thus the Evader is not penalized for standing still. Implications on related scenarios are discussed.

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DOI: 10.1109/ICUAS.2019.8798244