A guidance logic development for wake homing guidance system (ICCAS 2014)

Wake homing guidance is the tracking guidance method that enables an underwater vehicle to follow the wake trajectory which a target ship remains. Because wake detection region by a wake sensor is not wide enough, wake is detected only when the vehicle get to near the wake. It cannot be known real wake trajectory, existing well-developed guidance method is not applicable, so it is needed to guidance method to tracking unknown trajectory. This paper presents a guidance logic for wake homing guidance system. First of all, the concept of the wake modelling and detection is described. The wake model is dependent on the speed and the dimensions of the target. A guidance logic is consist of two parts which are the estimation of the wake trajectory and the guidance law for the tracking of the estimated trajectory. The stability of the guidance law is proved by using a simple second order differential equation. The inner-loop control system is designed by using dynamics of an underwater vehicle and a linear controller. For the validation of the proposed guidance logic, simulations are performed about guidance - control loop. The results show that the method is efficient to the wake homing guidance system.