Modified receding horizon guidance law with information on small accurate time-to-go

A modified receding horizon guidance law (MRHG), which is useful when the accurate time-to-go is available only for a short time before the final time, is proposed. The proposed MRHG is based on the receding horizon strategy and optimal control theory. In the presence of arbitrary target maneuvers and an initial lateral miss distance (MD) rate between a target and a missile, it is shown that the proposed MRHG guarantees not only to keep the lateral MD less than a given value, within which the warhead of the missile is detonated, from the appropriately selected time to the intercept time, but also to render the terminal MD zero. Through simulations when the time-to-go is accurate only for a short time, the performance of MRHG is compared with the optimal guidance law (OGL) and the receding horizon guidance law (RHG) in terms of the terminal MD, the lateral MD, and the missile acceleration.