Stealth-Maneuver Generation for Non-Stealth Aircraft: A Control Barrier Function Approach

Stealth-Maneuver Generation for Non-Stealth Aircraft: A Control Barrier Function Approach

Aiming to address the vulnerability of non-stealth aircraft to radar detection due to inherent design limitations, this paper proposes a method to generate maneuvers that reduce an aircraft’s radar cross-section (RCS) value below a specified threshold. The proposed method employs control barrier fun...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mustafa Demir, Ege C. Altunkaya, Akın Çatak, Fatih Erol, Emre Koyuncu, İbrahim Özkol, Uğur Zengin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Aerospace
Subjects:
low-observability
radar cross-section
survivability enhancement
stealth motion planning
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/12/6/478
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Aiming to address the vulnerability of non-stealth aircraft to radar detection due to inherent design limitations, this paper proposes a method to generate maneuvers that reduce an aircraft’s radar cross-section (RCS) value below a specified threshold. The proposed method employs control barrier functions and leverages the relationship between control inputs and the RCS. Due to confidentiality concerns, the required RCS database for the F-16 aircraft was generated through analyses performed using the created geometry. The results are compared with a virtual path that excludes RCS constraints and does not alter the aircraft’s attitude. Simulations reveal that <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>89.6</mn><mo>%</mo></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> of the cases using the proposed method achieve a mean RCS value below the threshold, compared to only <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>1.26</mn><mo>%</mo></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> for the virtual path. Moreover, the ratio of the time during which the RCS constraint is successfully met to the total simulation time averages over <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>78</mn><mo>%</mo></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> across all simulations, demonstrating the method’s effectiveness in reducing the RCS value below the specified threshold.
ISSN:2226-4310

Similar Items