Nonlinear Guidance Techniques for agile missiles

The paper presents new approaches to the guidance of agile missiles. They are based on nonlinear discontinuous control techniques applied to the generation of guidance laws capable of taking advantage of the vehicle's post-stall capabilities. Agility and maneuverability requirements imply a higher bandwidth and robustness for the guidance loop, which are addressed by a variable structure controller format. Formal stability considerations are presented, and the guidance structures are validated using nonlinear simulation. © 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.