Minimum-Effort Waypoint-Following Differential Geometric Guidance Law Design for Endo-Atmospheric Flight Vehicles

To improve the autonomous flight capability of endo-atmospheric vehicles, such as cruise missiles, drones, and other small, low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a novel minimum-effort waypoint-following differential geometric guidance law (MEWFDGGL) is proposed in this paper. Using classical geometry curve theory, optimal problem transformed into an space design problem, where command curvature. On one hand, change speed vehicle decoupled from problem. In way, widely adopted constant hypothesis process designing eliminated, and, hence, performance MEWFDGGL not influenced by varying vehicle. considering onboard computational burden, suboptimal form to solve both complexity burden dramatically increase number waypoints increases. The theoretical analysis demonstrates that original its can be applied general tasks with arbitrary waypoints. Finally, superiority effectiveness are verified numerical simulation experiments.