Robust terminal angle constraint guidance law with autopilot lag for intercepting maneuvering targets

In this paper, a robust continuous guidance law with terminal angle constraint for intercepting maneuvering targets in the presence of autopilot lag is proposed and its finite-time stability is proved. First, assuming that the missile autopilot is sufficiently fast, a composite fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode guidance (CFNTSMG) law is presented. The proposed guidance law is obtained through a combination of fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode control theory and generalized disturbance observer (GDOB). The presented guidance law requires no priori information on target maneuver, which is estimated and compensated online by GDOB. Moreover, no discontinuous term exists in CFNTSMG law and therefore chattering is eliminated effectively. Next, viewing the missile autopilot as an uncertain second-order system, an integrated guidance and control dynamics is formulated and the systematic step-by-step backstepping technique is used to derive a new robust guidance law, which not only holds the advantages of CFNTSMG law, but also is insensitive to autopilot lag. At each backstepping step, novel continuous virtual/real control laws using finite-time control approach are designed and tracking differentiator is used to overcome the ‘explosion of complexity’ problem encountered with traditional backstepping method. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.