Interceptor Guidance and Control

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Overview

Interceptor guidance is concerned with designing guidance laws that steer a missile or interceptor to hit a target while satisfying terminal constraints such as impact time, impact angle, or both simultaneously. These constraints are critical in salvo attacks, cooperative interception, and angle-constrained scenarios.

My research develops exact-time convergent guidance strategies that achieve desired impact conditions against both stationary and moving targets. The work also addresses input constraints, asymmetric bounds, and integrated guidance and control (IGC) formulations that couple the guidance and autopilot design.

Key Contributions

  • Exact-time convergent impact time guidance against moving targets.

  • Impact angle and input constrained guidance against stationary targets.

  • Integrated guidance and control for impact-time-constrained interception.

  • True-proportional navigation based exact-time impact time guidance.

  • Asymmetric input constrained range-to-go based impact time guidance.

Asymmetric Input Constrained Range-to-go based Impact Time Guidance

Saurabh Kumar, Rohit V. Nanavati, and Shashi Ranjan Kumar, Proceedings of the European Control Conference (ECC), Reykjavík, Iceland, 2026.

Simulation results for different desired impact times.

Simulation results for different initial heading angles.

Simulation results for different target aspect angles.

Comparison of simultaneous guidance strategies.

Try It Yourself

Choose an initial heading and a desired impact time below, then press Launch to watch the interceptor home in on the moving target — arriving exactly at the time you chose. Press Reset to try a different combination.

Initial heading γM(0)
Desired impact time td
Constant speed: 300 m/s vs. a 100 m/s target. Press Launch to run the guidance law.

Relevant Publications

Conference Papers

  1. Jashwanth Punyamurthy, Saurabh Kumar, and Shashi Ranjan Kumar, True-Proportional Navigation based Exact-Time Convergent Impact Time Guidance, International Workshop on Variable Structure Systems and Sliding Mode Control, Exeter, UK, 2026.

  2. Saurabh Kumar, Rohit V. Nanavati, and Shashi Ranjan Kumar, Asymmetric Input Constrained Range-to-go based Impact Time Guidance, European Control Conference, Reykjavík, Iceland, 2026.

  3. M. Kidron, Saurabh Kumar, and Shashi Ranjan Kumar, Integrated Guidance and Control for Impact-Time-Constrained Target Interception, European Control Conference, Reykjavík, Iceland, 2026.

  4. Vinay Kathiriya, Saurabh Kumar, Rohit V. Nanavati, Shashi Ranjan Kumar, and Hemendra Arya, Sliding Mode Control based LOS-Stabilization of a 2-DOF Gimbal, European Control Conference, Reykjavík, Iceland, 2026.

  5. M. Kidron, Saurabh Kumar, and Shashi Ranjan Kumar, Exact-Time Convergent Impact Time Guidance Against Moving Targets, Indian Control Conference, Bangalore, 2025.

  6. Vinay Kathiriya, Saurabh Kumar, and Shashi Ranjan Kumar, Impact Angle and Input Constrained Guidance Against Stationary Targets, Indian Control Conference, Bangalore, 2025.