Integrated estimation/guidance design approach for improved homing against randomly maneuvering targets

Interceptor missiles, designed against aircraft, have substantial speed and maneuverability advantage over their targets. Thus, by exploiting the technological progress, even simple guidance concepts yielded satisfactory performance. For the interception of antisurface missiles, higher guidance precision is required. Using conventional guidance and estimation concepts, existing missile defense systems have demonstrated hit-to-kill accuracy against nonmaneuvering targets. Guaranteeing a similar performance against maneuvering targets can be achieved only if the estimation errors against such targets are minimized. This paper introduces a new, logic-based estimation/guidance algorithm, that explicitly uses the time-to-go in-the estimation process and modifies the guidance law to reduce the consequence of estimation errors. The successful outcome of the new approach is illustrated by an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study.