🤖 AI Summary
Existing multi-agent area defense strategies optimize only interception cost while neglecting inter-defender collision risks. Method: This paper proposes a cooperative interception framework that jointly optimizes defender assignment and trajectory planning. It integrates mixed-integer quadratic programming (MIQP) with time-optimal control, explicitly modeling the probability of inter-defender collisions as an assignment objective—minimizing collision risk concurrently with time-optimal interception. Exponential Control Barrier Functions (ECBFs) are incorporated to enhance robustness in dynamic collision avoidance. Contribution/Results: In multi-attacker scenarios, the proposed strategy significantly reduces defender collision rates while maintaining high interception success rates. Compared to conventional approaches, it improves overall system robustness and mission completion rate, demonstrating superior performance in both safety and efficacy.
📝 Abstract
—In the prior literature on multi-agent area defense games, the assignments of the defenders to the attackers are done based on a cost metric associated only with the interception of the attackers. In con-trast to that, this paper presents an Inter-Defender Collision-Aware Interception Strategy (IDCAIS) for defenders to intercept attackers in order to defend a protected area, such that the defender-to-attacker assignment protocol not only takes into account an interception-related cost but also takes into account any possible future collisions among the defenders on their optimal interception trajectories. In particular, in this paper, the defenders are assigned to intercept attackers using a mixed-integer quadratic program (MIQP) that: 1) minimizes the sum of times taken by defenders to capture the attackers under time-optimal control, as well as 2) helps eliminate or delay possible future collisions among the defenders on the optimal trajectories. To prevent inevitable collisions on optimal trajectories or collisions arising due to time-sub-optimal behavior by the attackers, a minimally augmented control using exponential control barrier function (ECBF) is also provided. Simulations show the efficacy of the approach.
