We focus on the weapon target assignment and fire scheduling problem (WTAFSP) with the objective of minimizing the makespan, i.e., the latest completion time of a given set of firing operations. In this study, we assume that there are m available weapons to fire at n targets (> m). The artillery attack operation consists of two steps of sequential procedure : assignment of weapons to the targets; and scheduling firing operations against the targets that are assigned to each weapon. This problem is a combination of weapon target assignment problem (WTAP) and fire scheduling problem (FSP). To solve this problem, we define the problem with a mixed integer programming model. Then, we develop exact algorithms based on a dynamic programming technique. Also, we suggest how to find lower bounds and upper bounds to a given problem. To evaluate the performance of developed exact algorithms, computational experiments are performed on randomly generated problems. From the results, we can see suggested exact algorithm solves problems of a medium size within a reasonable amount of computation time. Also, the results show that the computation time required for suggested exact algorithm can be seen to increase rapidly as the problem size grows. We report the result with analysis and give directions for future research for this study. This study is meaningful in that it suggests an exact algorithm for a more realistic problem than existing researches. Also, this study can provide a basis for developing algorithms that can solve larger size problems.

Quantum-inspired Genetic Algorithm (QGA) is a probabilistic search optimization method combined quantum computation and genetic algorithm. In QGA, the chromosomes are encoded by qubits and are updated by quantum rotation gates, which can achieve a genetic search. Asset-based weapon target assignment (WTA) problem can be described as an optimization problem in which the defenders assign the weapons to hostile targets in order to maximize the value of a group of surviving assets threatened by the targets. It has already been proven that the WTA problem is NP-complete. In this study, we propose a QGA and a hybrid-QGA to solve an asset-based WTA problem. In the proposed QGA, a set of probabilistic superposition of qubits are coded and collapsed into a target number. Q-gate updating strategy is also used for search guidance. The hybrid-QGA is generated by incorporating both the random search capability of QGA and the evolution capability of genetic algorithm (GA). To observe the performance of each algorithm, we construct three synthetic WTA problems and check how each algorithm works on them. Simulation results show that all of the algorithm have good quality of solutions. Since the difference among mean resulting value is within 2%, we run the nonparametric pairwise Wilcoxon rank sum test for testing the equality of the means among the results. The Wilcoxon test reveals that GA has better quality than the others. In contrast, the simulation results indicate that hybrid-QGA and QGA is much faster than GA for the production of the same number of generations.

When offense launches missiles at valuable assets of the defense, the defense must assign its weapons to these missiles so as to maximize the total value of surviving assets threatened by them. Recently, a new asset-based linear approximation model was proposed for weapon target assignment problem with shootlook- shoot engagement policy and fixed set-up time between each anti-missile launch from each defense unit. In this paper, we apply the proposed to several ballistic missile defense examples and we show their weapon target assignment results specified with launch order time.

A missile defense system is composed of radars detecting incoming missiles aiming at defense assets, command control units making the decisions on weapon target assignment, and artillery batteries firing of defensive weapons to the incoming missiles. Although, the technology behind the development of radars and weapons is very important, effective assignment of the weapons against missile threats is much more crucial. When incoming missile targets toward valuable assets in the defense area are detected, the asset-based weapon target assignment model addresses the issue of weapon assignment to these missiles so as to maximize the total value of surviving assets threatened by them. In this paper, we present a model for an asset-based weapon assignment problem with shoot-look-shoot engagement policy and fixed set-up time between each anti-missile launch from each defense unit. Then, we show detailed linear approximation process for nonlinear portions of the model and propose final linear approximation model. After that, the proposed model is applied to several ballistic missile defense scenarios. In each defense scenario, the number of incoming missiles, the speed and the position of each missile, the number of defense artillery battery, the number of anti-missile in each artillery battery, single shot kill probability of each weapon to each target, value of assets, the air defense coverage are given. After running lpSolveAPI package of R language with the given data in each scenario in a personal computer, we summarize its weapon target assignment results specified with launch order time for each artillery battery. We also show computer processing time to get the result for each scenario.