Research on 3D Path Planning for Missile with Low Flight Altitude

Aiming at the problems of terrain avoidance, threat avoidance and the shortest path for cruise missiles flying at low altitude, a 3D path planning algorithm is proposed. First on the basis of battlefield terrain known, the initial 3D path is gotten using Voronoi graph and Dijkstra search algorithm under the consideration of terrain height. Next the threat from radars and the shape of the terrain are taken into account, and the concept of virtual force field is introduced to modify the initial path based on the improved potential field method. Thirdly another modification algorithm is proposed to modify the path again under the constraint of missile available overload. Finally a feasible flight path that makes the missile to be threatened less, fly more shortly and meet the overload need is attained. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the algorithm.