Robust impact angle constraints guidance law with autopilot lag and acceleration saturation consideration

In this paper, for the three-dimensional terminal guidance problem of a missile intercepting a manoeuvring target, a robust continuous guidance law with impact angle constraints in the presence of both an acceleration saturation constraint and a second-order-lag autopilot is developed. First, based on non-singular fast terminal sliding mode and adaptive control, a step-by-step backstepping method is used to design the guidance law. In the process of guidance law design, with the use of a finite-time control technique, virtual control laws are developed, a tracking differentiator is used to eliminate the ‘explosion of complexity’ problem inherent in the traditional backstepping method, and an additional system is constructed to deal with the acceleration saturation problem; its states are used for guidance law design and stability analysis. Moreover, the target acceleration is considered bounded disturbance, but the upper bound is not required to be known in advance, whereas the upper bound is estimated online by a designed adaptive law. Next, finite-time stability of the guidance system is strictly proved by using a Lyapunov method. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the excellent guidance performances of the proposed guidance law in terms of accuracy and efficiency.