New design methodology for impact angle control guidance for various missile and target motions

This brief introduces a new design methodology for impact angle control guidance (IACG) laws. The proposed methodology can extend any proven homing guidance laws to their impact angle control versions if the expressions of the estimated terminal flight path angles under those guidance laws are given. The time derivatives of the estimated terminal flight path angles are obtained as functions of the guidance commands. The IACG versions of the homing guidance laws are derived from those functions and the desired error dynamics of the estimated terminal flight path angle. The guidance law of each IACG version has two terms: the first term maintains the characteristics and capturability of the original guidance law and the second term drives the estimated terminal flight path angle to converge to the specified flight path angle. When a well-understood homing guidance law for a certain combination of target and missile models is given, an IACG law for that combination is easily derived without reformulating the guidance problem again. The usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated by several examples, deriving new IACG laws for various target and missile models.