A continuous second-order sliding mode guidance against highly maneuverable targets

Conventional proportional navigation or augmented proportional navigation guidance laws are widely used for intercepting maneuverable targets; however, they are effective only in intercepting a target with a constant velocity or a known acceleration. In this paper, a continuous second-order sliding mode guidance law is designed to intercept a highly maneuverable target in connection with the super-twisting algorithm. Meanwhile, the target maneuver information, regarded as unpredictable disturbance, is coped with by an extended state observer (ESO) and then is compensated in the guidance law. In the proposed guidance scheme, no information about target motion is needed. The closed-loop error can be guaranteed to be bounded by using Lyapunov method. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed guidance method against a highly maneuverable target.