aircraft interceptor
Control a simulated aircraft to predict location and intercept enemy aircraft in a 2D airspace.
In Programming for Mechatronic Systems at university, a project I undertook was to use C++ with ROS to predict the trajectory of enemy aircraft and intercept them in a simulated 2D airspace. By developing an algorithm to predict the interception point, I averaged 60 intercepted within 5 minutes, exceeding the threshold for bonus marks by 50%.
The prediction algorithm I developed was iterative, and worked by calculating the trajectory of the enemy aircraft, and estimating the time to intercept using the distance from my aircraft to the enemy. The enemy aircraft’s position was then extrapolated along it’s trajectory using this time to intercept, and the new estimate of the time to intercept was calculated with the extrapolated point. This was then repeated until the difference between subsequent estimates fell under an error threshold, which would give the final interception point as the goal location for my aircraft to go to.