Fixed-Time Distributed Event-Triggered Cooperative Guidance Methods for Multiple Vehicles with Limited Communications to Achieve Simultaneous Arrival

Abstract

Aiming at the salvo-attack problem of multiple missiles, a distributed cooperative guidance law based on the event-triggered mechanism is proposed, which enables missiles with large differences in spatial location and velocity to achieve simultaneous attacks with only a few dozen information exchanges. It effectively reduces the generation of control commands and communication frequency, thereby reducing channel load and improving communication efficiency and reliability. Compared to traditional periodic sampling communication, the number of communications has been reduced by over 90%. The guidance process is divided into two stages. The first stage is the cooperative guidance stage, where missiles achieve consensus of the time-to-go estimates through information exchange. In this stage, each missile is designed with an event-triggered function based on its own state error, and the missile only updates and transmits its information in the communication network when the error meets the set threshold, effectively reducing the occupancy rate of missile-borne resources during the cooperation process. The second stage is the independent guidance stage, where missiles can hit the target simultaneously while keeping the communication network silent. This is achieved by ensuring that the time-to-go estimates of missiles can represent the real time-to-go after achieving consensus. By the design of the two-stage guidance law and the replacement of the event-triggered function, the cooperative guidance system can be ensured to remain stable in scenarios where the leader missile is present and destroyed, and this excludes Zeno behavior. The stability of the cooperative guidance law is rigorously proved by algebraic graph theory, matrix theory, and the Lyapunov method. Finally, the numerical simulation results demonstrate the validity of the algorithm and the correctness of the stability analysis.