Terminal-Lead-Angle-Constrained Generalized Explicit Guidance

Besides enhancing the warhead effectiveness, the terminal lead angle constraint ensures that the target remains within the field of view of the radio proximity fuse, which is very critical for the success of a mission. This paper presents substantial enhancement of the generalized explicit guidance to include the terminal lead angle constraint in three dimension (3-D).. With the availability of the desired total lead angle in 3-D, it computes the necessary terminal flight path and heading angles so that it not only satisfies the lead angle constraint, but also leads to the minimum among all minimum control effort solutions for various possible terminal flight path and heading angle combinations. With no lead angle constraint, it also gracefully degenerates to the standard proportional navigation guidance.