Closed form guidance laws for intercepting moving targets

Abstract

A family of air-to-surface guidance laws designed to intercept moving targets has been developed. They include the effect of gravity, as well as constraints on the terminal flight path and heading angle, and are designed for tracking moving targets. These guidance laws yield equations for the commanded accelerations. They are based firmly on optimal control theory and meet the first and second variation necessary conditions that originate from Pontryagin's Minimum Principle. In addition, these solutions also meet the second variation sufficient conditions for a minimum. They have been evaluated in six degree of freedom simulations. The results show that they perform as designed, even for airframes which are rather sluggish.