Application of optimal tracking to goal-seeking attack vehicles

In many important tactical situations, an attacking vehicle is guided toward a selected target by means of a control law selected to optimize a quadratic performance index. When this occurs, the tracking observer may take this intelligence into account and realize improvement in both the tracking accuracy and an estimate of the attacker's ultimate destination. An evaluation is given of Luenberger's proposed solution to problems of this type by determining for a missile analogy example the sensitivity of tracking performance to the tracker's knowledge of the attacker's intelligence parameters and by comparing the performance obtained using the proposed method with that provided by more conventional approaches that do not utilize a priori intelligence information. Conclusions regarding the practical implementation of the new approach are then drawn.