ArcLine Guidance
Scott Shald
Master of Science, June 1997
Since World War II ground-to-air and air-to-air missiles have been an important
part of military arsenals. The subject of Missile Guidance has been dominated
over much of that time by the Proportional Navigation guidance law. The simplicity
of this law has been its greatest strength, but therein also lies some of its
weaknesses.
Early guidance laws were required to work with the limited computer processing
power of the time. Increases in processing power over the years allow us to
introduce more sophisticated techniques. In this thesis we develop a new missile
guidance algorithm, taking advantage of the advance in processing power.
The new guidance algorithm will be designed to improve upon Proportional Navigation,
effectively working in a broader range of situations.
Research supported by the Minnesota Center for Industrial
Mathematics (MCIM)
