Supertwisting Control-Based Cooperative Salvo Guidance Using Leader–Follower Approach

This article proposes a leader–follower cooperative salvo guidance strategy to intercept nonmaneuvering targets by exploiting the advantages of supertwisting sliding mode control. An improved estimate of time-to-go, that does not assume interceptor's small heading angle, is used in the guidance design. This allows the guidance strategy to remain effective even for large initial heading of the interceptor. Under the action of supertwisting control, the error in impact time settles precisely to zero in finite time. The proposed guidance strategy provides robustness against uncertainties and a smooth control signal, along with finite-time convergence of error. The guidance performance has been shown for one-to-one engagement, and in a cooperative framework, to achieve a salvo in a predetermined time. Numerical simulations are presented for various engagement scenarios to aid the analysis, and illustrate the efficacy of the proposed guidance scheme, even under noisy environment.