Design of optimal midcourse guidance sliding-mode control for missiles with TVC

This work discusses a nonlinear midcourse missile controller with thrust vector control (TVC) inputs for the interception of a theater ballistic missile, including autopilot system and guidance system. First, a three degree-of-freedom (DOF) optimal midcourse guidance law is designed to minimize the control effort and the distance between the missile and the target. Then, converting the acceleration command from guidance law into attitude command, a quaternion-based sliding-mode attitude controller is proposed to track the attitude command and to cope with the effects from variations of missile's inertia, aerodynamic force, and wind gusts. The exponential stability of the overall system is thoroughly analyzed via Lyapunov stability theory. Extensive simulations are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed guidance law and the associated TVC.