Gravity-compensated guidance for impact-angle interception of a moving target

Abstract

This paper proposes an impact-angle control guidance (IACG) law for anti-ship and anti-tank missiles in which the command converges to zero at the point of interception, even in a gravity field. The desired line-of-sight (LoS) angle that satisfies the terminal impact-angle and acceleration constraints is first defined. The guidance command is then derived as a solution that realizes the convergence of the actual LoS angle to the desired LoS angle during the terminal stage of homing in on a target. Gravity is considered when designing the guidance law such that the desired terminal constraints are accurately satisfied, even under realistic pitch-axis engagement. We also investigated whether the proposed law is optimal for minimizing the total expense of maneuvering while performing IACG in a gravity field. The results of the numerical simulations included in this study demonstrate that the proposed guidance law achieves accurate impact-angle interception with the command converging to zero at the end of homing.