This book entitled Differential Game Theory with Applications to Missiles and Autonomous Systems Guidance is an outgrowth of many years of the author's experience in missile guidance and control research and development in aerospace and defense organizations in the UK, the USA and Australia. Some of the material included in the book is the result of courses taught to undergraduate and post-graduate students in universities in the USA and Australia. The purpose of this book is to bring to the attention of researchers and engineers working in the field of aerospace guidance and control systems recent developments in the field. There are a number of excellent books on the topic of classical missile guidance theory. In this book the author has endeavored to approach the topic of missile guidance from the optimum game theory perspective. It is shown that the classical guidance approach is closely linked to this approach; in fact, it is demonstrated in Chapter 3 that the classical approach is simply a special case of the modern optimal game theory. This approach offers researchers and engineers a wider choice of system analysis and synthesis options to effectively deal with continuously evolving challenges of current and future missile and aircraft combat scenarios.

As noted in Chapter 1, the game theory has its origins in the field of economics, business, politics and social sciences. These developments have found their way into solving complex and challenging problems in engineering, operations research, and combat mission systems. Readers and practitioners in fields other than engineering will also find this book useful, particularly Chapter 2 which lays down formal mathematical foundations of the differential game theory. This should provide a useful background for readers whose interests encompass economics, business or other areas. Game theory approaches to problem solving, algorithms and their applications to various fields are progressing rapidly; evolutionary and quantum game theories, stochastic games, and diagnostic medicine applications are some examples of this trend. This book has been written to provide a formal and integrated text on the topic of differential game theory and should provide essential background to undergraduate and postgraduate research students in engineering, mathematics and science subjects. Missile guidance simulation examples are given in Chapter 6 and a simulation demonstration website (MATLAB, ^*.m files) is included with this book (program listing is given in the addendum). This resource should provide the reader with hands-on experience and with a tool to reinforce learning in topics covered in the book.

While this book is focussed on the application of the differential game theory to the missile guidance problem, there are other applications which are closely linked to this and are currently the subject of intense research. These applications include autonomous and intelligent vehicle control; unmanned vehicle formation strategies; UAV and aircraft collision avoidance; surveillance and reconnaissance; and electronic counter-measure and counter-countermeasure deployment. It is hoped that students, researchers and practicing engineers in industry and government as well as interested readers in other fields will find this text both interesting and challenging.

Farhan A. Faruqi

I gratefully acknowledge the opportunity, support and encouragements by the Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group, Australia, in making the writing of this book possible. I would also like to thank the Chief of Weapon and Combat Systems Division (WCSD) and the staff for their support in completing this work. Many other people have helped me and offered advice that has made this book possible. In this regard I wish to thank Jim Repo (formerly DST Group staff) and Arvind Rajagopalan (DST Group) for their help, advice and suggestions that contributed much to the book, particularly the guidance simulation test bed. I would like to thank the many staff members working with guidance and control technology at DST Group and with whom I have worked in the past and learnt much from them. I would like to thank Dr Sanjeev Arulampalam, Dr Mark Krieg and Mr Paul Heuer of DST Group for reviewing the technical contents of the book and for their comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank the many academics from the University of South Australia, and others from the University of Adelaide, for useful discussions and inspirational ideas on the topic of game theory. Finally I would like to thank my daughter Nasheed Qamar for taking on the unenviable task of editing this book and for her suggestions and advice.

Dr Farhan A. Faruqi

Senior Research Scientist
Information Processing and Human Systems Group
Combat and Mission Systems, WCSD
DST Group, Edinburgh, South Australia

Adjunct Professor
ITEE Division, University of South Australia
Mawson Lakes Campus, South Australia