Agile turn control considerations for air-to-air missile with reaction jets control system

The control problem of the air-to-air missile during the agile turn phase was investigated using the reaction jets control system, which can increase the off-borsight capability of short-range air-to-air missile and the capability of intercepting the rear hemispherical target. A method was proposed to control the orientation of the missile velocity by controlling the attitude of the missile, and this method proved feasible in theory. Considering the on-off property of thereaction jets control system, the sliding mode control method is used for attitude control. A sufficient condition for the reachability of the sliding mode is that the moment provided by the reaction jets control system should be no less than the maximum aerodynamical pitch moment. The feedback gain can be selected by nonlinear simulation or optimization. The results of nonlinear simulation showed once again the feasibility of the agile turn method proposed here. The sliding mode attitude control method also prove effective according to the results.