Integrated UAV Guidance Algorithm from Low-Level Control to High-Level Mission Planning

To address the growing need to protect critical infrastructure from malicious drone attacks, we present an air-defence system architecture that deploys groups of fixed-wing Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles. The system integrates a low-level target-tracking algorithm with a high-level mission planner to ensure coordinated and efficient operation. We prove that the cost function arising from the min–max formulation of the optimal target-tracking problem is convex, enabling the problem to be solved efficiently in real time. The reinforcement-learning-based mission planner then assigns each UAV to a target, maximising the safety and coverage of the protected region.