IACO algorithm for weapon-target assignment problem in air combat

Weapon-target assignment (WTA) is a process of assigning weapons to targets based on the degree of threats. Taking into account the angle, speed, distance and ability threat, a WTA model is established for evaluation of the assignment. By integrating the improvements in path selection, pheromone update and pheromone concentration interval, a WTA algorithm based on improved ant colony optimization (IACO) is proposed. Compared with other three algorithms and classic ant colony optimization, the IACO requires fewer iterations and avoids local optima more effectively.