Cooperative optimal guidance laws for imposing a relative intercept angle

The paper is concerned with cooperative geometrical guidance of multiple missiles pursuing a stationary or a moving target. An example scenario of interest is that of intercepting a high value target (such as a ballistic missile) by a team of cooperating interceptors arriving from different directions. It is customary to use in such scenarios guidance laws that have originally been developed for one-on-one engagements that can for example enforce a relative geometry between each missile and the target. In this paper we present optimal control based cooperative guidance laws that enforce at intercept a relative geometry in-between the group of missiles. The performance of the cooperative guidance laws is investigated using a nonlinear two dimensional simulation of the missiles' lateral dynamics and relative kinematics. It is shown that a relative intercept angle can be cooperatively achieved without requiring severe maneuvers from the missiles.