This book presents a comprehensive overview of the recent advances in the domain of optimal guidance, exploring the characteristics of various optimal guidance algorithms and their pros and cons. Optimal guidance is based on the concept of trajectory optimization, which minimizes the meaningful performance index while satisfying certain terminal constraints, and by properly designing the cost function the guidance command can serve as a desired pattern for a variety of mission objectives. The book allows readers to gain a deeper understanding of how optimal guidance law can be utilized to achieve different mission objectives for missiles and UAVs, and also explores the physical meaning and working principle of different new optimal guidance laws. In practice, this information is important in ensuring confidence in the performance and reliability of the guidance law when implementing it in a real-world system, especially in aerospace engineering where reliability is the first priority.

Written by an expert with more than 30 years of experience, Guidance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles contains new analytical results, taken from the author’s research, which can be used for analysis and design of unmanned aerial vehicles guidance and control systems. This book progresses from a clear elucidation of guidance laws and unmanned aerial vehicle dynamics to the modeling of their guidance and control systems. Special attention is paid to guidance of autonomous UAVs, which differs from traditional missile guidance. The author explains UAV applications, contrasting them to a missile’s limited ability (or inability) to control axial acceleration. The discussion of guidance laws for UAVs presents a generalization of missile guidance laws developed by the author. The computational algorithms behind these laws are tested in three applications—for the surveillance problem, the refueling problem, and for the motion control of a swarm of UAVs. The procedure of choosing and testing the guidance laws is also considered in an example of future generation of airborne interceptors launched from UAVs. The author provides an innovative presentation of the theoretical aspects of unmanned aerial vehicles’ guidance that cannot be found in any other book. It presents new ideas that, once crystallized, can be implemented in the new generation of unmanned aerial systems.

Airborne Vehicle Guidance and Control Systems is a broad and wide- angled engineering and technological area for research, and continues to be important not only in military defense systems but also in industrial process control and in commercial transportation networks such as various Global Positioning Systems (GPS). The book fills a long-standing gap in the literature. The author is retired from the Air Force Institute and received the Air Force's Outstanding Civilian Career Service Award.

The continuing evolving capability of guided weapons demands ever more knowledge of their development. This modern and comprehensive book covers the control aspect of guidance of missiles, torpedoes, robots, and even animal predators, from the viewpoint of the pursuer. The text studies trajectories, zones of interception, the required manoeuvre effort, time of flight, launch envelopes, and stability of the guidance process. Mathematics at first-year university level is the only prerequisite. Acquaintance with feedback control theory would be helpful to the reader. - Covers the control aspect of guidance of missiles, torpedoes, robots, and even animal predators, from the viewpoint of the pursuer - Studies trajectories, zones of interception, the required manoeuvre effort, time of flight, launch envelopes, and stability of the guidance process

The first three CEAS (Counsil of European Aerospace Societies) Specialist Conferences on Guidance, Navigation and Control (CEAS EuroGNC) were held in Munich, Germany in 2011, in Delft, Netherlands in 2013 and in Toulouse, France in 2017. The Warsaw University of Technology (WUT) and the Rzeszow University of Technology (RzUT) accepted the challenge of jointly organizing the 4th edition. The conference aims to promote scientific and technical excellence in the fields of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) in aerospace and other fields of technology. The Conference joins together the industry with the academia research. This book covers four main topics: Guidance and Control, Control Theory Application, Navigation, UAV Control and Dynamic. The papers included focus on the most advanced and actual topics in guidance, navigation and control research areas: · Control theory, analysis, and design · ; Novel navigation, estimation, and tracking methods · Aircraft, spacecraft, missile and UAV guidance, navigation, and control · Flight testing and experimental results · Intelligent control in aerospace applications · Aerospace robotics and unmanned/autonomous systems · Sensor systems for guidance, navigation and control · Guidance, navigation, and control concepts in air traffic control systems For the 4th CEAS Specialist Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control the International Technical Committee established a formal review process. Each paper was reviewed in compliance with good journal practices by independent and anonymous reviewers. At the end of the review process papers were selected for publication in this book.

This volume covers guidanec techniques, control and guidance, radio and radar command, guide beam, doppler and homing techniques, gryoscopic fundamentals, inertial and celestial navigation, computer applications, and actuators.

Current missile guidance laws are generally based on one of several forms of proportional navigation (PN). While PN laws are robust, analytically tractable, and computationally simple, they are only optimal in a narrow operating regime. Consequently, they may not optimize engagement range, time to intercept, or endgame kinetic energy. The advent of miniaturized high speed computers has made it possible to compute optimal trajectories for missiles using command mid-course guidance as well as autonomous onboard guidance. This thesis employs a simplified six degree of freedom (6DOF) flight model and a full aerodynamic 6DOF flight model to analyze the performance of both PN and optimal guidance laws in a realistic simulation environment which accounts for the effects of drag and control system time constants on the missile's performance. Analysis of the missile's kinematic boundary is used as the basis of comparison. A missile's kinematic boundary can be described as the maximum theoretical range at which it can intercept a target assuming no noise in its sensors. This analysis is immediately recognizable to the warfighter as an engagement envelope. The guidance laws are tested against non-maneuvering and maneuvering aircraft targets and against a simulation of a cruise missile threat. An application of the 6DOF model for a theater ballistic missile interceptor is presented.