Nonlinear Three-Dimensional Guidance for Impact Time and Angle Control with Field-of-View Constraint

Abstract

This paper presents a nonlinear three-dimensional (3D) guidance law for homing missiles with field-of-view (FOV) constraint to achieve impact time and angle control against a stationary target. Specifically, a guidance error vector and its nonlinear error dynamics are first developed. The desired impact time and angle can be satisfied as long as the guidance error converges to zero before the interception. The proposed nonlinear error dynamics is then enhanced with an auxiliary function to address the FOV constraint, and the prescribed-time control technique is employed to obtain a feedback guidance law. The guidance framework in this paper is rigorously derived under the original 3D missile-target kinematics model, without decoupling the engagement geometry into two mutually orthogonal planes. Furthermore, different from existing similar studies, the proposed guidance law does not require explicit time-to-go estimation and numerical iterations, which avoids estimation error and allows for convenient implementation.