Bounds on the Root-Mean-Square Miss of Radar-Guided Missiles Against Sinusoidal Target Maneuvers

Abstract

In preliminary analysis of guided systems, it is required to assess the miss distance performance from some small set of parameters. Previous papers presented analytical formulas of bounds on the root-mean-square miss by a radar-guided missile against step- and exponential-type maneuvers. This paper presents formulas against harmonic-sinusoidal maneuvers. Moreover, a type of maneuver that is not treated in the literature, the continuously sinusoidal maneuver with uncertain-random frequency and magnitude, is introduced, and bound on the miss is presented. The formulas use a set of core parameters that affect the miss distance; thus, they can be used for synthesis and analysis of the performance of radar-guided tactical missiles. The bound is derived subject to assumption that the missile guidance law and estimator are fully matched to the missile dynamics, the target maneuver, and the glint noise. The glint is the dominant noise source, the missile applies frequency agility, there is no blind range or missile acceleration limit, and the terminal phase period is sufficiently long so that initial conditions fade away. No system can achieve smaller root-mean-square miss distance than the one presented, subject to the stated assumptions.