Design of finite time cooperative mid-course guidance law for unmanned target drone aircrafts

For cooperative mid-course guidance problem of multiple unmanned target drone aircrafts(UTDA), a novel cooperative guidance law with impact angle constraints is proposed in this study. Firstly, the relative motion equation of UTDAs and target, and the multiple-UTDA cooperative guidance model with impact angle constraints are constructed. Then, the process of cooperative guidance law design is divided into two stages. In the first stage, the acceleration command on the LOS direction is designed based on the fixed-time consensus theory, the speed dimension is introduced which can guarantee the consensus of all UTDAs′ impact times in fixed time. In the second stage, an impact-angle-control guidance law is proposed based on the approaches of variable coefficients sliding mode control and finite-time convergence theory to reach the virtual targets, the acceleration command on the direction of perpendicular to the LOS is developed, which can ensure that all the LOS angles converge to the desired terminal LOS angle in finite-time and some mobility when approaching the virtual targets is achieved, and the Lyapunov stability is adopted. Finally, numerical simulations express that the cooperative mid-course guidance law designed in this study can make each UTDA reach the virtual target at the same time with small miss distance and meet the LOS constraint, and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed mid-course guidance law. ©2023 Journal of Northwestern Polytechnical University.