Multi-to-multi spacecraft impulsive cooperative interception based on reachable domain coverage

This paper studies the multi-interceptor and multi-target impulsive cooperative interception problem based on reachable domain coverage. Two problems are mainly solved including the multi-to-multi target assignment problem and the multi-to-one cooperative interception problem. According to the linearized uncertainty propagation model, the envelopes of fixed-time reachable domains for both the interceptors and the targets are described by ellipsoidal equation. Then, for the one-to-one interception case, an analytical method is proposed to obtain the impulse magnitude for covering the target's reachable domain with given impulse time. Based on the rapid estimations of fuel consumption for the one-to-one case, the particle swarm optimization technique is employed to resolve the multi-to-multi target assignment problem. In addition, the multi-to-one reachable domain coverage constraint is converted into the inequality constraint, which is easy to judge in the optimization process. Finally, the multi-to-one cooperative interception problem for optimal fuel consumption is optimized through the interior-point algorithm. Numerical results show that the proposed multi-to-multi target assignment method can rapidly obtain the assignment scheme, and the multi-to-one cooperative interception strategy can reduce the fuel consumption when compared with the one-to-one interception.