Use of passive side-mounted sensor to hit ground-based target from above

Terminal guidance under the constraints that the heading error must be greater than a specified angle (in order that the sensor see the target) and the magnitude of the lateral acceleration is limited, is studied. Only the kinematic features of flight are considered. In order to hit, or come close to the target, the final segment of terminal flight must violate the heading-error constraint, during which time the target is invisible. If there is an additional condition that the missile must remain above the target (e.g., for imaging) during terminal descent, the optimum trajectory is a conic spiral. As in the previous case, there is a final segment of blind flight. The miss distance depends on the constraints and other parameters of the problem, as well as on the sensor measurement errors. Monte Carlo simulation was used to estimate the miss distance for the conic spiral case under various conditions