Nonlinear Model Predictive Spread Acceleration Guidance for High Speed Targets

A formulation combining the philosophies of model predictive control design and spread acceleration guid- ance is proposed here, which leads to a closed form solution of the lateral acceleration(latax) update. Essentially the latax is spread over the entire range of time-to-go. The guidance law is obtained by parameterizing the latax in two different ways. This design leads to a closed form solution of the guidance command, hence the technique is computationally efficient and can be implemented online. The latax is taken to be constant in one case and a straight line in the other. In constant parametrization, there is a requirement for a time-to-go update, to obtain a feasible domain for a tighter miss distance. This is done by using proportional navigation (PN) guidance law. The guidance law has been applied for interception of high speed targets, where the interceptor is at a velocity disadvantage to that of the target. Through simulation studies the effectiveness of the guidance design has been observed. On comparison with the conventional PN guidance law, it can be observed that the maximum magnitude of the demanded latax in much lesser when compared to PN. Therefore it lies within the feasible region of latax saturation.