English

Intent-Context Synergy Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous UAV Decision-Making in Air Combat

Machine Learning 2026-03-03 v1 Systems and Control Systems and Control

Abstract

Autonomous UAV infiltration in dynamic contested environments remains a significant challenge due to the partially observable nature of threats and the conflicting objectives of mission efficiency versus survivability. Traditional Reinforcement Learning (RL) approaches often suffer from myopic decision-making and struggle to balance these trade-offs in real-time. To address these limitations, this paper proposes an Intent-Context Synergy Reinforcement Learning (ICS-RL) framework. The framework introduces two core innovations: (1) An LSTM-based Intent Prediction Module that forecasts the future trajectories of hostile units, transforming the decision paradigm from reactive avoidance to proactive planning via state augmentation; (2) A Context-Analysis Synergy Mechanism that decomposes the mission into hierarchical sub-tasks (safe cruise, stealth planning, and hostile breakthrough). We design a heterogeneous ensemble of Dueling DQN agents, each specialized in a specific tactical context. A dynamic switching controller based on Max-Advantage values seamlessly integrates these agents, allowing the UAV to adaptively select the optimal policy without hard-coded rules. Extensive simulations demonstrate that ICS-RL significantly outperforms baselines (Standard DDQN) and traditional methods (PSO, Game Theory). The proposed method achieves a mission success rate of 88\% and reduces the average exposure frequency to 0.24 per episode, validating its superiority in ensuring robust and stealthy penetration in high-dynamic scenarios.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.00974,
  title  = {Intent-Context Synergy Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous UAV Decision-Making in Air Combat},
  author = {Jiahao Fu and Feng Yang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.00974},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:57:46.553Z