Performance of APN guidance law in a two dimensional aerial engagement scenario

In the available literature, the main advantage claimed for APN (augmented proportional navigation) is that it demands a progressively decreasing missile acceleration in the constant target maneuver situation, as opposed to an increasing missile acceleration for the more conventional PN guidance. This inference is mainly based on studies with one-dimensional models. Based on a two-dimensional model, the authors not only incorporate a more realistic target maneuver, but also consider the effect of target glint characterized by correlated noise. The missile acceleration and the miss-distance induced by target maneuver and glint are the two features of performance investigated. In a deterministic study, with target maneuver initiation occurring at various points in time, the acceleration profiles resemble the ones obtained from a linear quadratic tracking formulation of the guidance problem. The results indicate that there is a considerable improvement in the miss distance performance over PN, for maneuvers which are initiated when the relative separation is small