Optimal solution to orbital three-player defense problems using impulsive transfer.

This paper investigates three-dimensional orbital three-spacecraft-player defense problems. An attacker is about to strike a non-maneuverable asset, while a defender attempts to prevent this attacking in order to protect the asset. It is assumed that both the attacker and the defender have only one chance to maneuver using impulsive thrust. The attacker is not aware of the defender’s participation, while the latter has full information about the former. A hybrid method combined particle swarm optimization with a Newton-Interpolation algorithm is proposed to solve presented orbital defense problems. Numerical results show that the proposed methodology can solve orbital three-player defense problems effectively. Energy consumption of defender is analyzed in detail to tell whether the specified upper bound of defender’s energy is justified. The interesting discovery is the valid departure window of defender in lurk orbit which have important significance for design defender’s strategy in orbital three-player defense problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]