Basic Engagement Zones

This paper establishes a concise definition for an Engagement Zone which describes a region of space for which a Mobile Agent must alter its current motion strategy or otherwise risk engaging with a known Threat. In the event of an engagement, the Mobile Agent may have to actively evade the Threat in order to guarantee survival. Provided the Engagement Zone definition, several fundamental engagement models are described and their corresponding Engagement Zones are derived. In each of the engagement models, the Mobile Agent is treated as an Evader; they include pursuit-evasion against a range-limited Pursuer moving with simple motion and faster speed, a variation in which the Pursuer is slower, and a turret-evasion scenario against a range-limited, turn-rate-limited Turret. The slow Pursuer Engagement Zone is applied to a path planning scenario wherein the Mobile Agent must reach a desired target in minimum time while navigating outside the dynamically changing Engagement Zone. Numerical results demonstrate the advantage of Engagement Zone-based navigation over other path plans based on circumnavigation.

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DOI: 10.2514/1.I011394