Spatial-Temporal Cooperative Guidance for Multiple Flight Vehicles

The spatial-temporal cooperative guidance problem for multiple flight vehicles has garnered significant attention in recent years due to its potential benefits in both military and civil fields. This book provides a concise but holistic introduction to this practical problem and presents a summative collection of the latest solutions to the concerned challenges, thereby providing some theoretical support for enhancing the synergism and applicability of cooperative guidance for multiple flight vehicles. This book consists of nine chapters. In Chapter 1, recent works on cooperative guidance are systematically recalled. Chapter 2 introduces the common formulation and unique challenges of the cooperative guidance problem from a practical viewpoint. In Chapter 3, a varying-gain proportional navigation guidance law with accurate time-to-go prediction is developed to realize precise control of the impact time. In Chapter 4, in response to the inherent finite-time property of the cooperative guidance problem, a fixed-time convergent error dynamic is proposed to design a 3D distributed cooperative guidance law with enhanced convergence. In Chapter 5, a command-decoupled design strategy is proposed to address the challenging spatial-temporal cooperative guidance problem through the derivation and combination of the coplanar cooperative guidance and planar pursuit guidance commands. In Chapter 6, an integrated design strategy based on rotational operations on spatial vectors is proposed to simultaneously satisfy the impact angle and time constraints. In Chapter 7, a multiple-stage cooperative guidance strategy is developed to satisfy the spatial-temporal constraints without relying on time-to-go information. In Chapter 8, a unified command augmentation method is proposed to prevent the seeker's FOV from exceeding the boundary throughout the cooperative guidance. Finally, Chapter 9 concludes this book and offers an instructive opinion on the future directions of the cooperative guidance problem in both academic and engineering investigations. Therefore, this book can not only serve as a reference for researchers who are interested in this field with systematic and inspirational perspectives, but also be a useful handbook for engineers engaged in cooperative guidance and control of multiple flight vehicles.

Wei Dong received the B.Eng. degree in flight vehicle design and engineering and the Ph.D. degree in aeronautical and astronautical science and technology from the Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2017 and 2023, respectively. He was Visiting Researcher with the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan, South Korea, from 2021 to 2022, and Postdoctoral Researcher with the Beijing Institute of Technology, from 2023 to 2025. He is currently Associate Professor with the National Key Lab of Autonomous Intelligent Unmanned Systems, Beijing Institute of Technology. His research interests include guidance and control of flight vehicles, cooperative control of multiagent systems, and aerospace intelligent systems.

Chunyan Wang received the M.Sc. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Greenwich, London, U.K., in 2012, and the Ph.D. degree in control systems from the University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K., in 2016. He was Research Associate with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester from 2016 to 2018. He is currently Associate Professor with the School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China. His research interests include cooperative guidance and control, UAVs, and robust control.

Jianan Wang received the B.S. and M.S. in control science and engineering from the Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China, and the Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS, USA, in 2011. He is currently Professor with the School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology. His research interests include cooperative control of multiple dynamic systems, cooperative guidance, and estimation of sensor networks. Dr. Wang is Senior Member of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Ming Xin received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in automatic control from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 1993 and 1996, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO, USA, in 2002. He is currently Professor with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. His research interests include flight mechanics, guidance, navigation, and control of aerospace vehicles, optimal control theory and applications, estimation/filtering, and cooperative control of multiagent systems. Dr. Xin was Recipient of the U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER Award. He is Associate Fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Senior Member of American Astronautical Society (AAS), and Member of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is Technical Editor for the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

Fang Deng received the B.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in control science and engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2004 and 2009, respectively. He is currently Professor with the School of Automation, Beijing Institute of Technology. His research interest covers intelligent group systems, autonomous sensor networks, and smart wearable devices. Prof. Deng was the recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. He is Fellow of The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He serves as Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, etc.