Integrated weapon/flight control for armed helicopters based on situation trend assessment via dual heuristic dynamic programming with disturbances.

Abstract

Aiming to enhance autonomous air combat capabilities for armed helicopters, a novel dynamic integrated weapon/flight control design method is proposed in the presence of disturbances based on a heuristic dynamic programming (HDP) algorithm. Driven by the underactuated, highly coupled, nonlinear characteristics of helicopters, the proposed mathematical model incorporates weapon delivery rotation to achieve precise aiming and reduce controller complexity. To realize dynamic gaming of the target and the helicopter, two critical indexes are introduced: aiming deviation and attack occupation. While general situation assessment focuses on current air combat information, the proposed situation trend assessment integrates both current data and future maneuver trends, influencing the subsequent movements of both the helicopter and the target. Based on this theoretical framework, near-optimal strategies for both the target and the helicopter are derived. Furthermore, for better air combat performance, this paper proposes an optimal control policy for helicopters based on an identification and an HDP algorithm under disturbances. The identification process effectively eliminates training estimation errors, while the HDP algorithm ensures boundedness, monotonicity, convergence, and optimality. Simulation experiments confirm the efficacy and practicality of the proposed control methods in addressing the challenges of integrated weapon/flight control design, demonstrating significant improvements in autonomous air combat performance.