Robust proportional navigation guidance against highly maneuvering targets

This paper addresses the problem of controlling a rotary wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) tracking a target moving on ground. The target tracking problem by UAVs has received much attention recently and several techniques have been developed in literature most of which have been applied to fixed wing aircrafts. The use of quadrotor UAVs, the subject of this paper, for target tracking presents several challenges especially for highly maneuvering targets since the development of time-optimal controller (required if target is maneuvering fast) for quadrotor UAVs is extremely difficult due to highly non-linear dynamics. The primary contribution of this paper is the development of a proportional navigation (PN) based method and its implementation on quad-rotor UAVs to track moving ground target. The PN techniques are known to be time-optimal in nature and have been used in literature for developing guidance systems for missiles. There are several types of guidance laws that come within the broad umbrella of the PN method. The paper compares the performance of these guidance laws for their application on quadrotors and chooses the one that performs the best. Furthermore, to apply this method for target tracking instead of the traditional objective of target interception, a switching strategy has also been designed. The method has been compared with respect to the commonly used Proportional Derivative (PD) method for target tracking. The experiments and numerical simulations performed using maneuvering targets show that the proposed tracking method not only carries out effective tracking but also results into smaller oscillations and errors when compared to the widely used PD tracking method.

Download Full-text

Capture region for true proportional navigation guidance with nonzero miss-distance

Journal of Guidance Control and Dynamics ◽

10.2514/3.21245 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 627-628 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Debasish Ghose

Keyword(s):

Proportional Navigation ◽

Capture Region ◽

Miss Distance ◽

Proportional Navigation Guidance

Download Full-text

Co-operative 3D salvo attack of multiple missiles under switching topologies subject to time-varying communication delays

The Aeronautical Journal ◽

10.1017/aer.2019.7 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 123 (1262) ◽

pp. 464-483

Author(s):

X.L. Ai ◽

L.L. Wang ◽

Y.C. Shen

Keyword(s):

Initial Conditions ◽

Sufficient Conditions ◽

Time Varying ◽

Communication Delays ◽

Proportional Navigation ◽

Stationary Target ◽

Switching Topologies ◽

Guidance Law ◽

Multiple Missiles ◽

Proportional Navigation Guidance

ABSTRACTThis study focuses on the co-operative salvo attack problem of multiple missiles against a stationary target under jointly connected switching topologies subject to time-varying communication delays. By carefully exploring certain features of the typical pure proportional navigation guidance law, a two-stage distributed guidance scheme is proposed without any information on time-to-go in this study to realise the simultaneous attack of multiple missiles. In the first guidance stage, a co-operative guidance law is proposed using local neighbouring communications only to achieve consensus on range-to-go and heading error to provide favourable initial conditions for the latter phase, in which switching topologies and time-varying communication delays are taken into account when obtaining sufficient conditions of consensus in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Then, missiles disconnect from each other and are guided individually by the typical pure proportional navigation guidance law with the same navigation gain to realise salvo attack in the second guidance phase. Finally, numerical simulations are carried out to clearly validate the theoretical results.

Download Full-text

Nonsingular PNG-Based Impact Time Control Guidance with Lower Dependence on Time-to-Go Estimate

International Journal of Aerospace Engineering ◽

10.1155/2019/5031245 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2019 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Sijiang Chang ◽

Shengfu Chen

Keyword(s):

Numerical Simulation ◽

Theoretical Analysis ◽

Research Literature ◽

Proportional Navigation ◽

Impact Time ◽

Time Control ◽

Practical Engineering ◽

Adjustable Range ◽

Natural Characteristics ◽

Proportional Navigation Guidance

In a bid to take advantage of natural characteristics of the proportional navigation guidance (PNG) in practical engineering, the PNG-based impact time control guidance (ITCG) continues to be a popular alternative for achieving the desired impact time of a missile. For most such ITCG, the performance is dependent on the accuracy of the time-to-go estimation. Along the lines of the development of PNG-based ITCG in earlier studies, a nonsingular ITCG is proposed on the basis of nonlinear formulations. It is demonstrated that, by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation, this proposed ITCG is shown to be advantageous in certain circumstances. By deriving a novel additional acceleration command, the proposed law is of lower dependence on time-to-go estimate and is capable of eliminating some singularities, leading to wider adjustable range of the desired impact time and better adaptability to more conditions. This research is expected to be supplementary to those presented in the current research literature.

Download Full-text