Missile Threat Detection and Evasion Maneuvers With Countermeasures for a Low-Altitude Aircraft

Abstract

This paper investigates Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPAD) missile threat detection and an effective maneuvering strategy for aircraft (A/C) destruction avoidance. The 3D trajectory of a multistage missile (boost and sustain phases) under Pure Proportional Navigation is first estimated. The maximum likelihood estimator is used to estimate its motion parameters of the two-stage missile considered using only angle measurements from a low-altitude A/C. Missile threat detection is investigated based on two methods: estimation-based as a baseline method and threat plane-based. The former can provide a miss distance between the A/C and the missile, but more measurements are required. The latter is shown to give a faster threat alert, allowing the A/C to start the evasive maneuver earlier. An efficient evasion maneuver for avoiding destruction, is banking away from the missile by a turning maneuver in the horizontal plane, due to its low-altitude. The survivability probability of the A/C is evaluated with and w/o countermeasures (flares). There are two key factors that affect the evasion performance: maneuver start time and the maximum acceleration during the maneuver. Simulations show that the A/C can start maneuvering earlier using the threat plane-based method compared with the estimation-based method. It can successfully evade the missile with the help of maneuvering. It is also shown that using flares, the necessary maneuver is less drastic (lower <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$g$</tex-math></inline-formula> 's). Simulation results compare the necessary <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$g$</tex-math></inline-formula> 's for obtaining a certain minimal distance from the missile.