Investigation of the Performance Characteristics of the Angle-based Proportional Navigation Guidance Law

Guidance commands generated by the proportional navigation guidance (PNG) law which constitutes the most popular one among the guidance laws applied on the guidance munition fired against predetermined targets are in the form of linear acceleration or angular speed as dictated by the relevant engagement geometry. As a result of the studies in which notable linear acceleration- and angle-based guidance laws are compared, it is seen the lateral acceleration values obtained with the PNG law occur in a lower level than the results of the angle-based guidance laws. However, the angle-based guidance laws lead to lower final miss distances. In this study, the PNG law is so adapted that it yields angle-based guidance commands and then it is applied upon a short-range air-to-surface missile against a maneuvering surface target as well as the velocity pursuit guidance law that is nothing but a version of PNG law, linear homing guidance law, and body pursuit guidance law. After the computer simulations, it is observed that the angle-based PNG law produces smaller final miss distances compared to its original form. The resulting lateral accelerations are in admissible levels. Also, the engagement duration values with the target happen to be almost the same.