No abstract

The problem of defeating a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is of considerable importance to the modern warfighter. In recent studies high power radio frequency (HPRF) directed energy weapons (DEWs) have been shown to be suitable for this purpose. Hence there is a need to develop mathematical modelling frameworks to quantify HPRF DEW performance, especially when they are operating in a wideband or ultrawideband mode. Consequently, this paper introduces a novel mathematical model, based upon a new interpretation of UAV vulnerabilities to HPRF DEW, which permits performance assessment to be undertaken. The key to this is to view each UAV through its vulnerabilities to HPRF DEW energy at given frequencies and analyse its impact on the lifetime of each of the UAVs. This results in the definition of an appropriate stochastic process to count the number of UAVs still active in the swarm over a given time interval. Consequently, this permits the determination of minimum HPRF DEW power levels at given frequencies in order to guarantee likelihood of defeat of the swarm before it reaches the HPRF DEW source. Hence the results in this paper will provide a novel framework for determining the specifications of an HPRF DEW's required power distribution over target vulnerabilities to ensure a desired level of system performance.

High energy lasers (HELs) are evolving to provide an effective solution for air and missile defense. The emergence of this technology comes at a similar time to the development of cooperative and collaborative defense systems that collect and communicate data to inform decisions. This paper proposes a stochastic jump method for modeling the performance of networked HELs, defending against aerial threats which follow a queueing methodology. By drawing on an existing method that quantifies performance using the sum of sojourn times in a stochastic jump process, the model can predict the probability of survival when multiple effectors are tasked in defending against an arbitrary number of threats. The model can be applied more generally to processes with both waiting time–dependent service and finite existence. Furthermore, a new HEL counteraction probability model is developed to enable the demonstration and comparison of three different system collaboration methods in a future warfare application. Results suggest the prevailing superimposing laser strategy may be less effective than simple one-to-one allocation of lasers to threats. There may also be merit in targeting separate components of a threat’s structure.