A real-time exhaustive search algorithm for the weapon-target assignment problem

Abstract

Weapon-Target Assignment (WTA) as an important part of the aerial defense cycle has long been studied. Challenges are usually finding fast-computing methods to search for an optimal or near-optimal solution in case of a large number of weapons and targets. This viewpoint gains significance in terms of mathematics; yet, practically, it has limited applicability in the mentioned context. In this paper, a real-time search algorithm was proposed which decomposed the WTA problem and provided a real-time exhaustive search algorithm by decreasing the size of solution space and deleting impossible solutions. Implementation of the algorithm for three typical scenarios exhibited excellent real-time performance and the possibility of finding exact solutions to large-scale problems.