Minimum Effort Pursuit/Evasion Guidance with Specified Miss Distance

Abstract

The paper takes a new point of view on the design of linear quadratic optimal control guidance algorithms that is applicable both for pursuit as for evasion. In contrast to the traditional approach of minimizing (maximizing) the miss distance, while penalizing the effort, the proposed method imposes an upper (lower) bound on the miss distance, while minimizing the effort. The optimal guidance law can be derived for arbitrary order dynamics of the own vehicle, just as in the case of classical optimal guidance. Analytic expressions are provided for zero- and first order-dynamics. In addition, it is possible to take into account in the guidance algorithm design any available information about the dynamics of the target as well as its guidance strategy. The method is demonstrated on several pursuit and evasion problems, including that in which a target tries to evade a pursuer that is using proportional navigation guidance.