A Convex Programming-Based Approach to Trajectory Optimization for Survivability Enhancement of Homing Missiles

Abstract

This paper addresses trajectory optimization of a homing missile to simultaneously consider the homing performance and evasive maneuver against a defending interceptor. An optimal control problem that maximizes the miss distance from the interceptor while ensuring zero homing error is presented; the adjoint method is applied to efficiently compute the miss distance objective. Then, a sequential convex program (SCP) methodology that computes the optimized trajectory by solving a sequence of convex subproblems is adopted to obtain the optimized trajectory. Numerical examples on a homing scenario of an air-to-surface missile toward a stationary target demonstrate the validity and efficacy of the proposed convex program-based method compared to traditional nonlinear program approaches.