Distributed Optimal Guidance Laws for Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Attacking A Moving Target

Abstract: In this paper, two cooperative guidance laws based on two-point boundary value are designed to deal with the problem of cooperative encirclement and simultaneous attack under condition of both known target acceleration and unknown target acceleration. The only requirement for the multi-attacker communication network is that it contains a directed spanning tree. The guidance laws can function properly as long as at least one attacker can observed the target. The acceleration components along the attacker-target line of sight in the novel guidance laws can reduce the relative remaining distance between each of the attackers and the target at the same speed, thus completing simultaneous attack and avoiding the calculation of the remaining time. The components of the guidance laws perpendicular to the attacker-target line of sight can make the normal overload of relative motion zero, so that the trajectory will be smooth and the collision problem within the attacker can be avoided. Simulation results verified the practicability of the novel guidance laws.