An extended study on a new missile guidance algorithm against a maneuvering target

Abstract

Our former studies have shown the characteristics of augmented proportional navigation and conventional proportional navigation. The augmented proportional navigation employs the information about the target's normal acceleration, therefore it seems better than conventional proportional navigation which doesn't employ the information, however, it is not always the case. That is, the conventional proportional navigation is favorable against the aircraft in-coplane maneuver, while augmented proportional navigation is favorable against the aircraft out-of-coplane maneuver. Motivated by the fact, we have studied a new missile guidance algorithm which switches between conventional and augmented proportional navigation depending on the kind of the aircraft maneuver. Some few results have been appeared in our former paper1 * where a point mass model is employed for the missile dynamics. The result shows the general superiority of this guidance algorithm over existent conventional or augmented proportional navigation guidance. This paper shows the application of the study on a short range air-to-air missile. A six DOF missile dynamics model of practical preciseness is employed, and aerodynamic characteristics, control systems are also the same practical level. A detailed study about the relation between the noise level and the threshold of the switching in the proposed guidance is also conducted.