Optimal 3-D Coverage-based Cooperative Guidance for Intercepting a Highly Maneuvering Target

This paper presents an optimal cooperative guidance law for inferior vehicles intercepting a highly maneuvering target in three-dimensional space. Considering the physical acceleration constraints of interceptors, the study first analyzes the acceleration command variation and feasible interception region of the opti mal interception guidance law in the relative coordinate system. Secondly, by constructing virtual aiming points, an optimal control problem is formulated to design a biased zero effort miss (ZEM) that covers the escape region of a highly maneuvering target through the combination of interception regions while minimizing the energy required for reachable set regulation. In order to obtain the expected coverage area of each vehicle, the total costs of adjusting the interception regions are minimized to derive a set between vehicles and virtual aiming points by applying Hungarian allocation algorithm. Comparative studies and Monte Carlo simulation results show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed cooperative strategy that a group of vulnerable vehicles can accurately intercept a highly maneuverable target.