Abstract: Path planning is a crucial component for ensuring the safety and efficiency of flight missions, especially for fighter aircraft. To enhance the combat effectiveness of fighter aircraft, it is important to consider how to avoid danger sources and terrain obstacles, reduce fuel consumption, and utilize the aircraft’s own performance to accomplish the mission objectives. In the modern battlefield environment, the shortest path is not the only criterion for planning, but also other factors such as the threat level to the aircraft, fuel consumption, mission completion time, and minimum turning radius. In this paper, we propose a multi-constraint path planning method for fighter aircraft that incorporates these factors into an improved particle swarm algorithm. We transform the constraints of three-dimensional terrain, threat source, fuel consumption, and mission time into an aggregated fitness function. We construct a limit curvature matrix to evaluate the feasibility of the generated path. We also introduce an adaptive adjustment strategy based on the activation function for the parameters in the particle swarm algorithm. The weights of each constraint are determined according to the actual demand. The experiment results show that our method can efficiently plan the optimal path that satisfies the requirements. Compared with other improved particle swarm algorithms, our method has higher optimal search efficiency and better convergence effect. We also provide optimal values for important parameters such as mission energy consumption, mission time, flight speed and others to support the overall mission planning. Our method has certain practical application value.

Abstract: The laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a highly accurate air-to-ground weapon that offers several benefits. Specifically, it has a high hit rate, significant power, and is straightforward to use. Despite these advantages, LGBs are guided by semi-active lasers, which can be affected by atmospheric conditions. As a result, their spatial release region (SRR) is challenging to calculate accurately, particularly in situations with poor visibility or limited field of view. To address this issue, a new method for determining the SRR is proposed, based on a model of the 1.06 μm laser’s transmittance through the atmosphere and the diffuse reflection of the target surface. This approach allows for the calculation of the capture target time of the laser seeker, as well as the starting position of the ballistic space boundary. By utilizing flight test data such as instantaneous velocity, altitude, off-axis angle, and atmospheric visibility, this method can generate a more precise estimate of the SRR. Ultimately, this can improve the accuracy of LGBs in challenging atmospheric conditions by up to 9.2%.

The advantages of the laser-guided bomb (LGB) as an air-to-ground precision-guided weapon are high hit rate, great power, and simplicity of usage. LGB is guided by semi-active laser ground-seeking, therefore the impact of the atmosphere can affect how well it hits its target. LGB’s spatial release region (SRR) is challenging to calculate precisely, especially with poor field of view, resulting in a lower real hit probability. To increase the hit probability of LGB in tough atmospheric situations, a novel method for calculating the SRR is proposed. This method is based on the transmittance model of the 1.06 μm laser in the atmospheric species and the laser diffuse reflection model of the target surface to determine the capture target time of the laser seeker. And then calculate the boundary ballistic space starting position by ballistic model, and get the spatial scope of the spatial release region. This method may determine the release region of laser-guided bombs based on flight test data such as instantaneous velocity, altitude, off-axis angle, and atmospheric visibility. The SRR calculation method helped us improve the 9.2% hit probability of LGB by more effectively employing aircraft release conditions, atmospheric visibility, and other factors.