Time-to-go prediction for anti-ballistic missile midcourse guidance

Abstract

This paper addresses a time-to-go prediction algorithm for the anti-ballistic missile midcourse phase. The algorithm finds the time-to-go when the travel distance of the anti-ballistic missile is identical to the length of the flight path approximating a reference trajectory. The travel distance is calculated from the remaining thrust profile with neglected aerodynamics. The trajectory minimizing the final time or maximizing the terminal velocity is selected as the reference trajectory. Bezier curve and downrange polynomial approximations are used for path length calculation. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the characteristics of the proposed time-to-go prediction methods.