Guidance law switching logic considering the seekers field-of-view limits

Abstract

The impact time control guidance (ITCG) method, which has been proposed recently, can be applied successfully to a salvo attack of multiple missiles. Compared to the proportional navigation guidance law, this guidance method makes additional manoeuvres to synchronize the impact times. However, such manoeuvres do not consider the manoeuvrability and the seeker's field-of-view (FOV) of a missile and may cause the target to move out of the missile seeker's FOV; maintaining the seeker lock-on condition during the engagement is critical for missile guidance. To solve this problem, two methods are presented in this article: one is based on the calculation of minimum and maximum flight times considering the missile's manoeuvring limit and the seeker's FOV limit to check the available impact time. The other is based on guidance law switching logic that keeps the target look angle of the seeker constant. These methods can provide the boundary limit of the impact time of the salvo attack and prevent the lock-on failure because of the seeker's FOV limit of the missile during the homing phase when the ITCG is used. This method was applied to the case of a time critical salvo-attack of multiple missiles, which have manoeuvring limit and the seeker's FOV limit, and desired results were obtained.