Time-coordination entry guidance for multi-hypersonic vehicles

Considering the requirements of saturation attack, a time-coordination entry guidance algorithm for multi-hypersonic vehicles is proposed in this paper, which is composed of three parts: generation of coordination time, predictive lateral guidance based rough adjustment of reentry flight time and longitudinal predictor-corrector guidance based time coordination. Firstly, the coordination flight time is generated by analyzing the time range of entry flight for each hypersonic vehicle. Next, in the lateral profile, the predictive lateral guidance is employed to roughly adjust the reentry flight time of the vehicle, and provide feasible time range of coordinative flight for longitudinal predictor-corrector guidance. In the longitudinal profile, a quadratic bank angle magnitude profile is designed and adjusted by the Newton iteration scheme to meet the range and time constraints, and realize the time-coordination entry guidance for multi-hypersonic vehicles. As the impacts of the lateral motion and longitudinal motion on entry flight time are both considered, the proposed algorithm greatly extends the feasible time range of coordinative flight, which is more suitable for engineering practice. Finally, the feasibility and robustness of the proposed time-coordination entry guidance algorithm are tested and verified by the multi-mission and multi-vehicle guidance simulations.