Multi-missile cooperative guidance using coordination variables

A two-level cooperative guidance architecture for multi-missile attack is proposed. The architecture is composed with local guidance for each missile on the lower level and a coordination strategy on the upper le-vel. It provides a general solution to some categories of multi-missile cooperative control problems. Based on the notion of decentralized guidance and centralized coordination, an application of the architecture to the salvo attack is investigated. A new practical cooperative guidance law, which could automatically guide missiles to hit the stationary target simultaneously, is devised. It is a combination of the guidance law with constraint on guidance time and the coordination strategy based on coordination variables. The cooperative guidance law is quite feasible because of its analytical form, and it is suboptimal in the sense of control energy. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the cooperative guidance law.