Optimization of interception plan for rectilinearly moving targets

The article considers the problem of combinatorial optimization of interception of rectilinearly moving targets as a modification of the traveling salesman problem. New macro characteristics and definitions for this problem are introduced and used to classify the obtained solutions. Vector criteria composed of several important for applications functionals are described. The principles of no-waiting and maximum velocity are proved for two types of criteria. An intelligent brute-force algorithm with dynamic programming elements for finding optimal plans according to the introduced intercept criteria is proposed and implemented. Statistics of solutions of the developed algorithm is collected for a set of different initial parameters and the proposed macro characteristics are investigated. The conclusions about their applicability as local rules for the greedy algorithm for finding a suboptimal intercept plan are drawn.