Necessary conditions for “hit-to-kill” in missile interception engagements

The endgame of a linearized endoatmospheric interception scenario between an evading target and a pursuing missile is considered, in which the adversaries are aerodynamically steered and their controls are bounded and have arbitrary-order dynamics. The common near head-on or tail-chase assumption is relaxed and a new condition by which the dimension of the kinematics may be reduced is obtained. Assuming perfect information, the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a “hit-to-kill” capture zone is presented. The existence of such a capture zone is a necessary condition for guaranteeing point capture against any target maneuver. The condition is expressed as a function of the adversaries’ arbitrary control dynamics, and explicit conditions are derived for several previously studied cases, complimenting known results.