Suboptimal Guidance Based on Pursuit and Impact Angle Control for Long-Range Air-to-Air Missiles

Abstract

A numerically efficient method is proposed to produce high-performance suboptimal trajectories for maximizing terminal speed in long-range air-to-air missile engagements. Pursuit guidance is augmented by a linear lead-angle bias function and combined with homing guidance such as proportional navigation and impact-angle-control guidance to quickly generate a suboptimal trajectory very close to the optimal trajectory while satisfying terminal constraints. Numerical results for various engagement scenarios are provided to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method for real-time optimal midcourse guidance.