Hierarchical Online Air Combat Maneuver Decision Making and Control Based on Surrogate-Assisted Differential Evolution Algorithm

One-to-one within-visual-range air combat of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) requires fast, continuous, and accurate decision-making to achieve air combat victory. In order to solve the current problems of insufficient real-time performance of traditional intelligent optimization algorithms for solving decision-making problems and the mismatch between the planning trajectory and the actual flight trajectory caused by the difference between the decision-making model and the actual aircraft model, this paper proposes a hierarchical on-line air combat maneuvering decision-making and control framework. Considering the real-time constraints, the maneuver decision problem is transformed into an expensive optimization problem at the decision planning layer. The surrogate-assisted differential evolution algorithm is proposed on the basis of the original differential evolution algorithm, and the planning trajectory is obtained through the 5 degrees of freedom (DOF) model. In the control execution layer, the planning trajectory is tracked through the nonlinear dynamic inverse tracking control method to realize the high-precision control of the 6DOF model. The simulation is carried out under four different initial situation scenarios, including head-on neutral, dominant, parallel neutral, and disadvantaged situations. The Monte Carlo simulation results show that the Surrogate-assisted differential evolution algorithm (SADE) can achieve a win rate of over 53% in all four initial scenarios. The proposed maneuver decision and control framework in this article achieves smooth flight trajectories and stable aircraft control, with each decision average taking 0.08 s, effectively solving the real-time problem of intelligent optimization algorithms in maneuver decision problems.