Internal-Model-Based Impact-Time-Control Guidance Against Weaving Targets

This paper considers the problem of guiding a homing missile to intercept a weaving target at a given time, as the target maneuvers sinusoidally to escape from the missile. This problem is known as the impact-time-control guidance problem. While impact-time-control guidance has been extensively studied against stationary or non-maneuvering targets, few studies consider maneuvering targets. It is because there lacks a general, efficient method to predict the future maneuver of the target. To this end, this paper proposes a two-part guidance framework. The first part is a target maneuver predictor, that is developed as an internal model with a hybrid adaption law. The target maneuver is then integrated to predict the target position in the future, named as the predicted intercept point. The second part is an impact-time-control guidance law that targets the predicted intercept point. This guidance law is borrowed from a previous work of the authors, but with new analyses on its convergence. Numerical experiments illustrate the performance of the proposed guidance framework in an interception case.