Projectile Collision Simulation

A Rust-based simulation of two projectiles where one pursues the other until they collide. The simulation includes visualization with angle analysis between velocity vectors at collision.

Current Simulation Result

Projectile Parameters

Red Projectile (Target)

• Initial Position: (0.0, 30.0)
• Initial Velocity: (2.0, 0.0) m/s
• Flight Height: 30.0 meters (constant horizontal flight with random evasion)
• Movement: Moves horizontally with random angular deviation (-5° to +5°) and P-controller correction
• Speed: 2.0 m/s
• Target Height Correction: P-gain of 0.2 with 60% correction weight

Green Projectile (Pursuer)

• Initial Position: (0.0, 0.0)
• Initial Velocity: (0.0, 0.0) m/s (starts at rest)
• Flight Height: Ground level (0.0 m) - rises to intercept target
• Movement: Steered towards predicted collision point with red projectile
• Speed: 2.5 m/s (constant after acceleration)

Simulation Parameters

• Collision Threshold: < 1.0 meter distance
• Time Steps: Up to 1000 steps
• Interceptor Speed: 2.5 m/s (constant)
• Target Evasion:
  • Random angle deviation: -5° to +5°
  • P-Controller gain: 0.2
  • Correction weight: 0.6 (60% correction, 40% random)
  • Target height maintenance: 30.0 meters
• Angle Threshold: Collision result indicator
  • Green Checkmark: Angle > 5°
  • Red X: Angle ≤ 5°

Assignment Challenge

Objective

Modify the calculate_steering_direction() function to achieve a collision with an angle greater than 5 degrees.

Testing

Run the simulation with:

cargo run

The output shows:

• Collision time step
• Positions and velocities at collision
• Angle between velocity vectors
• Visual indicator (✅ for >5°, ❌ for ≤5°)

Visualization Examples

Example 1:

Example 2:

The simulation generates collision simulation images showing:

• Red line: Target trajectory
• Green line: Pursuer trajectory
• Dots: Position at each time step
• Green checkmark or red X: Collision point indicator

Building and Running

cargo build
cargo run

The graph will be saved as collision_simulation.png in the project directory.

There are commandline options to modify the default behaviour of the simulation:

--randomize-interceptor / -r: will randomize the interceptor start position

--runs N / -n, --out-dir DIR / -o: will run N simulation and stores the results in the DIR directory

Examples:

cargo run -- -r
cargo run -- -n 10 -o test_dir_1
cargo run -- -r -n 10 -o test_dir_1

Additional requirements

From a Ubunutu 24.04 run the following commands to install the necessary packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config libfontconfig-dev