Partial Integrated Guidance and Control of Interceptors for High-Speed Ballistic Targets

A new partial integrated guidance and control design approach is proposed in this paper, which combines the benefits of both integrated guidance and control as well as the conventional guidance and control design philosophies. The proposed technique essentially operates in a two-loop structure. In the outer loop, an optimal guidance problem is formulated considering the nonlinear six degrees-of-freedom equation of motion of the interceptor. From this loop, the required pitch and yaw rates are generated by solving a nonlinear suboptimal guidance formulation in a computationally efficient manner while simultaneously assuring roll stabilization. Next, the inner loop tracks these outer loop body rate commands. This manipulation of the six degrees-of-freedom dynamics in both loops preserves the inherent time scale separation property between the translational and rotational dynamics, while retaining the philosophy of integrated guidance and control design as well. Because of this, the tuning process is quite straightforward and nontedious as well. Extensive six degrees-of-freedom simulations studies have been carried out, considering three-dimensional engagement geometry, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed new design approach engaging high-speed ballistic targets. A variety of comparison studies have also been carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach