Adjustable impact-time-control guidance law against non-maneuvering target under limited field of view

This article proposes an impact-time-control guidance law that can keep a non-maneuvering moving target in the seeker’s field of view (FOV). For a moving target, the missile calculates a predicted intercept point (PIP), designates the PIP as a new virtual stationary target, and flies to the PIP at the desired impact time. The main contribution of the article is that the guidance law is designed to always lock onto the moving target by adjusting the guidance gain. The guidance law for the purpose is based on the backstepping control technique and designed to regulate the defined impact time error. In this procedure, the desired look angle, which is a virtual control, is designed not to violate the FOV limit, and the actual look angle of the missile is kept within the FOV by tracking the desired look angle. To validate the performance of the guidance law, numerical simulation is conducted with different impact times. The result shows that the proposed guidance law intercepts the moving target at the desired impact time maintaining the target lock-on condition.