Chapter 10

True Proportional Navigation

Module 9: Lecture 23
Original TPN with Non-Maneuvering Target

Keywords. Proportional navigation, TPN, Capture region, Capture circle, Capture

equation

As mentioned in a previous chapter, the basic PN guidance law has many versions
of which the the True Proportional Navigation (TPN) guidance law is one. According
to its basic principles, the missile latax commanded by it is proportional to the LOS
angular rate and is applied normal to the LOS (and not normal to the missile velocity
vector as in PPN).

In the subsequent sections we will deal with various cases of TPN guidance laws
and some of its many variants. The literature shows that the TPN trajectory does admit
closed-form solutions. However, these closed-form solutions are quite complex and
sometimes implicit in nature. But they have the advantage that we can examine any
aspect of the trajectory that we wish without carrying out extensive simulations. We
will not spend too much time here to obtain closed-form solutions to TPN. Rather,
we will focus our attention on the main capturability results, which can be obtained
without actually solving the trajectory equations completely.

147
 148 Guidance of Missiles/NPTEL/2012/D.Ghose

V
T

αT

a sin( α − θ) θ
M M Ref
T
V
a M
M
R

θ αM
M Ref

a cos(α − θ)
M M

Figure 10.1: Missile-target engagement geometry for TPN

10.1 Original TPN with Non-Maneuvering Target

In this section we will consider the TPN law as it was first formulated in the non-linear
setting. For our purposes we will call this the original TPN law. The missile latax is
expressed as,

aM = cθ̇ (10.1)

where, c > 0 is a constant. When this law was originally formulated the value of c
was not specified clearly since it was not clear in what way it was related to the other
parameters in the system. The idea was to choose a value of c later that will give the
best performance. It could be a function of the missile velocity or of the initial closing
velocity or even of the instantaneous closing velocity (in which case it will not be a
constant, but a time-varying quantity). We shall explore some of these possibilities
later and examine how they affect the performance of the guidance law.

Consider the missile target-engagement geometry given in Figure 10.1. The target
is a non-maneuvering one. The equations of motion are,
Guidance of Missiles/NPTEL/2012/D.Ghose 149

VR = Ṙ = VT cos(αT − θ) − VM cos(αM − θ) (10.2)

Vθ = Rθ̇ = VT sin(αT − θ) − VM sin(αM − θ) (10.3)

˙
VM = aM sin(αM − θ) (10.4)
aM cos(αM − θ)
α˙M = (10.5)
VM

Note that unlike in other cases (pursuit and LOS), here the missile velocity is a time-
varying quantity. This happens because the missile latax aM in this case is not normal
to the missile velocity, but is deflected from the normal by a certain angle. Hence, a
component of the missile latax is along the missile velocity and changes it with respect
to time. This is reflected by (10.4). Also note that in TPN since the closed-form ex-
pression for the guidance command (aM ) is pre-determined, it can be directly used in
the state equations. On the other hand, in the case of LOS and pursuit guidance, the
guidance was specified by certain specific requirements (for example, in LOS guidance
the guidance command had to be such that the missile had to turn so as to always re-
main on the LOS, and in pursuit guidance the guidance command had to be such as to
keep the missile pointed in a specified direction relative to the current target position).
Moreover, in both LOS and pursuit, it was implicitly assumed that the missile latax is
normal to the missile velocity.

Now, differentiating (10.2) and (10.3) with respect to time and substituting (10.1),
(10.4), and (10.5), we obtain,

V˙R = ˙ cos(αM − θ)
−VT sin(αT − θ)(−θ̇) + VM sin(αM − θ)(α˙M − θ̇) − VM

= θ̇Vθ + aM sin(αM − θ) cos(αM − θ) − aM sin(αM − θ) cos(αM − θ)

= θ̇Vθ (10.6)

V˙θ = ˙ sin(αM − θ)
VT cos(αT − θ)(−θ̇) − VM cos(αM − θ)(α˙M − θ̇) − VM

= −θ̇VR − aM cos2 (αM − θ) − aM sin2 (αM − θ)

= −θ̇VR − aM

= −θ̇(VR + c) (10.7)

From these two equations we can easily obtain,

Vθ V˙θ + VR V˙R + cV˙R = 0 (10.8)

150 Guidance of Missiles/NPTEL/2012/D.Ghose

V
R

A Vθ
C
C 3
C 2
1
-c

Figure 10.2: Trajectories in the (Vθ , VR ) plane

which can be integrated to yield,

Vθ 2 + VR 2 + 2cVR = k (10.9)

where,

k = Vθ0 2 + VR0 2 + 2cVR0 (10.10)

So, the above equation can be written as,

2 2
Vθ 2 + (VR + c) = Vθ0 2 + (VR0 + c) (10.11)

which is the equation of a circle in the (Vθ , VR )-plane, with center at (0, −c) and radius

2
equal to Vθ0 2 + (VR0 + c) . So the point (Vθ , VR ) remains on this circle as shown in
Figure 10.2. The arrows in the figure show the direction in which the point moves as the
engagement proceeds. The direction of these arrows can be easily deduced from (10.6)
and (10.7). It is easy to see that the points on the negative VR -axis (for example, A, B, C,
and D) correspond to the collision geometry and hence they lead to capture. Now, there
are three types of circles C1 , C2 , and C3 . Circles of the type C1 terminate on the negative
VR -axis. Circles of type C2 terminate at the origin. Circles of type C3 terminate on the
positive VR -axis. So initial points lying on the C3 type of circles cannot lead to capture
Guidance of Missiles/NPTEL/2012/D.Ghose 151

VR
0

V
θ0

-c

Figure 10.3: Capture region of original TPN

since they end up with Vθ = 0 and VR > 0. This corresponds to a missile which is
going away from the target and since Vθ = 0 ⇒ θ̇ = 0, no latax is applied by the missile
guidance system. The missile therefore continues to go away from the target and no
capture is possible. Such trajectories give a non-zero miss-distance which occurs at the
point E shown in Figure 10.2, where VR = 0.

Points on the C1 circle always leads to capture since they end up in the collision-
geometry. Points on C2 are somewhat ambiguous since their capturability depends on
the initial range of the missile from the target. In addition, any initial point on the
negative VR -axis also leads to capture, since it corresponds to the collision geometry
right from the beginning. In fact, these points are also stationary points. Thus, we have
the capture region of the original TPN as given in Figure 10.3. Thus the capture region
of the original TPN is the interior of a circle of radius c centered at (0, −c) (also called
the capture circle) plus the whole of the negative VR -axis. The capture circle is given by
k < 0 or,

Vθ0 2 + VR0 2 + 2cVR0 < 0 (10.12)

This is also called the capture equation.

152 Guidance of Missiles/NPTEL/2012/D.Ghose

VR
0

2N'-1
V
θ0

-1-1

Figure 10.4: Capture region for original TPN using the initial closing velocity for guidance

Note that the parameter c plays an important role in the determination of the cap-
turability of TPN.

In one of the earlier chapters it was mentioned that the missile latax is considered
to be a function of the closing velocity in TPN. We will look at this in detail later. But,
for the time being, let us assume that it is a function of the initial closing velocity Vc0 =
−VR0 by letting c = −N  VR0 . The capture equation (10.12) then becomes:

Vθ0 2 < (2N  − 1)VR0 2 (10.13)

This can be written as,

√
|Vθ0 | < 2N  − 1|VR0 | (10.14)

This region is shown in Figure 10.4. Note that the capture region ceases to exist when
N  < 1/2. Of course, the negative VR -axis still remains the capture region.

It is possible to integrate (10.9) further as follows: Multiplying R on both sides of

(10.6) and substituting in (10.9) we obtain the following equation:

RV˙R + Ṙ2 + 2cṘ = k (10.15)

Guidance of Missiles/NPTEL/2012/D.Ghose 153

which can be integrated once to yield,

RṘ + 2cR = kt + b (10.16)

where, b = R0 (VR0 + 2c). We can obtain the final time of interception from the above
equation by setting R = 0 at t = tf , and obtain,

b R0 (VR0 + 2c)
tf = − =− (10.17)
k Vθ0 + VR0 2 + 2cVR0
2

It is possible to integrate these equations even further and obtain a complete solution
to the trajectory equations but these final equations are very complicated and we will
not go into the details here.

However, an important result that we can obtain from those equations is the vari-
ation of the missile latax with respect to time as the engagement proceeds. It turns out
that the capture region can be partitioned into basically six regions (as shown in Figure
10.5(a)) and depending on where the initial condition lies, the corresponding missile
LOS rate history is shown in Figure 10.5(b). Note that the LOS rate also represents the
qualitative behaviour of the latax since we assume the closing velocity to be positive. It
shows that in most cases, except one, the missile latax demand (which is proportional
to the LOS rate θ̇) dies down to zero as the missile intercepts the target.

A point that needs to be noted is that unlike the previous guidance laws we do not
have any condition on VM with respect to VT . In other words, so long as the capture
conditions are satisfied, the missile can capture the target even if the initial missile ve-
locity is less than the target velocity. This may appear to be counter-intuitive but note
the stress on the word ’initial’. In TPN the missile velocity changes with time because
of the longitudinal acceleration imparted by the latax which is not normal to the mis-
sile velocity vector. Due to this, even when the initial VM is small, as the engagement
proceeds, the missile velocity increases and finally the missile is able to intercept the
target.
154 Guidance of Missiles/NPTEL/2012/D.Ghose

V
R0
. III
θ
IV
Vθ
0 V
I c/3
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c/2
.
θ0
II
II
-c
-c III IV
I

V
VI

time t
VI f

(b)
(a)

Figure 10.5: (a) Partitioning of the capture region (b) The LOS rate history