A Dynamic Thrust Control for Pursuer Time-To-Go Reduction

The paper proposes a linear variable thrust (LVT) control for the pursuer instead of using a fixed thrust control. This LVT accelerates the pursuer during the flight time in order to decrease the intersection Time-To-Go, and maintains the pursuer miss distance accuracy. The pursuer with changing velocity vector (Direction and Speed) is modelled mathematically. The model assumes that the pursuer is launched with fixed thrust from the ground. The expected path of the pursuer simulated using four-dimensional vector consisting of proportional navigation constants and thrusting parameters. The extracted results from the simulation indicates that the proposed thrust control improves the pursuer flight time more than 12% under effect of target manoeuvrability.