Impact-Time-Control Guidance Law With Constraints on Seeker Look Angle

• Published in: IEEE transactions on aerospace and electronic systems 2017-10, Vol.53 (5), p.2621-2627
• Main Authors: Jeon, In-Soo, Lee, Jin-Ik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Boundary conditions; Equations of motion; Finite element analysis; Geometry; Guidance (motion); Homing; Impact-time-control guidance (ITCG) law; Missiles; Navigation; nonlinear; Nonlinear equations; Proportional navigation; seeker look angle; Target tracking; Tracking
• ISSN: 0018-9251; 1557-9603
• DOI: 10.1109/TAES.2017.2698837

An impact-time-control guidance (ITCG) law is required for simultaneous attack of multiple missiles. In application of ITCG, the limit of seeker look angle should be regarded as an important factor in homing engagement scenarios. To avoid the loss of target tracking during engagement, the seeker's look angle should be confined to the seeker's field-of-view limit. This paper suggests a new ITCG law for a realistic situation with constraints on seeker look angle driven by the exact nonlinear equations of motion in plane. The proposed guidance law ensures the seeker's look angle to reduce monotonically from the initial value to zero at the intercept point. The resulting solution is presented in the form of proportional navigation guidance law with a time-varying navigation gain. The closed-form navigation gain can be obtained from information on the current missile-to-target range and heading angle.