Autonomous Maneuver Decisions via Transfer Learning Pigeon-Inspired Optimization for UCAVs in Dogfight Engagements

This paper proposes an autonomous maneuver decision method using transfer learning pigeon-inspired optimization(TLPIO)for unmanned combat aerial vehicles(UCAVs)in dogfight engagements.Firstly,a nonlinear F-16 aircraft model and automatic control system are constructed by a MATLAB/Simulink platform.Secondly,a 3-degrees-of-freedom(3-DOF)aircraft model is used as a maneuvering command generator,and the expanded elemental maneuver library is designed,so that the aircraft state reachable set can be obtained.Then,the game matrix is composed with the air combat situation evaluation function calculated according to the angle and range threats.Finally,a key point is that the objective function to be optimized is designed using the game mixed strategy,and the optimal mixed strategy is obtained by TLPIO.Significantly,the proposed TLPIO does not initialize the population randomly,but adopts the transfer learning method based on Kullback-Leibler(KL)divergence to initialize the population,which improves the search accuracy of the optimization algorithm.Besides,the convergence and time complexity of TLPIO are discussed.Comparison analysis with other classical optimization algorithms highlights the advantage of TLPIO.In the simulation of air combat,three initial scenarios are set,namely,opposite,offensive and defensive conditions.The effectiveness performance of the proposed autonomous maneuver decision method is verified by simulation results.

Driving Space for Autonomous Vehicles

Driving space for autonomous vehicles(AVs)is a simplified representation of real driving environments that helps facilitate driving decision processes.Existing literatures present numerous methods for constructing driving spaces,which is a fundamental step in AV development.This study reviews the existing researches to gain a more systematic understanding of driving space and focuses on two questions:how to reconstruct the driving environment,and how to make driving decisions within the constructed driving space.Furthermore,the advantages and disadvantages of different types of driving space are analyzed.The study provides further understanding of the relationship between perception and decision-making and gives insight into direction of future research on driving space of AVs.

Tube-based robust reinforcement learning for autonomous maneuver decision for UCAVs

Reinforcement Learning(RL)algorithms enhance intelligence of air combat AutonomousManeuver Decision(AMD)policy,but they may underperform in target combat environmentswith disturbances.To enhance the robustness of the AMD strategy learned by RL,thisstudy proposes a Tube-based Robust RL(TRRL)method.First,this study introduces a tube todescribe reachable trajectories under disturbances,formulates a method for calculating tubes basedon sum-of-squares programming,and proposes the TRRL algorithm that enhances robustness byutilizing tube size as a quantitative indicator.Second,this study introduces offline techniques forregressing the tube size function and establishing a tube library before policy learning,aiming toeliminate complex online tube solving and reduce the computational burden during training.Furthermore,an analysis of the tube library demonstrates that the mitigated AMD strategy achievesgreater robustness,as smaller tube sizes correspond to more cautious actions.This finding highlightsthat TRRL enhances robustness by promoting a conservative policy.To effectively balanceaggressiveness and robustness,the proposed TRRL algorithm introduces a“laziness factor”as aweight of robustness.Finally,combat simulations in an environment with disturbances confirm thatthe AMD policy learned by the TRRL algorithm exhibits superior air combat performance comparedto selected robust RL baselines.