The Weapon-Target Assignment Problem

Research addressing the Weapon Target Assignment (WTA) Problem, the problem of assigning weapons to targets while considering their effective probability of kill, began with Manne’s seminal work in 1958. In the years following, improved modeling and solution techniques have been developed, along with improvements in computing power, which have enabled researchers to consider more complex variants of the problem, to include models with fewer assumptions and models in which time is a parameter. Herein, we review the various model formulations, exact algorithms, and heuristic algorithms for the static and dynamic WTA. We place the formulations into a comparable form and use this form to provide insight into the evolution of the defense-related WTA problem. The solution methods are comparatively analyzed and an analysis of the influence of past work is conducted. More recent developments are introduced and discussed.