A Time-to-go Estimator Design for Proportional Navigation Guided Missiles using Kalman Filters

In this paper, we propose a new time-to-go estimation filter for PN guided missiles. The proposed estimator is derived based on the approximation of the length of the PNG homing trajectory that we newly introduced using the special coordinate system. The coordinate system is convenient for taking the target movement into account. In addition, compared with the previous time-to-go estimation techniques, the parameters required for evaluating the length can be obtained only with the seeker measurements. Moreover, the seeker measurement error statistics can effectively be considered since our filter is derived based on the Kalman filter theory. Simulation result for a typical anti-ship see-skimming missile homing trajectory shows the excellent performance of the proposed filter.