Mathematical Problems in Engineering 
Volume 4 (1998), Issue 3, Pages 201-231
doi:10.1155/S1024123X98000799

Another point of view on proportional navigation

E. Duflos,1,2 P. Penel,3 P. Vanbeeghe,1,2 and P. Borne2

 1Institut Supérieur d'Electronique du Nord, Département Signaux et Systèmes, 41 Boulevard Vauban 59046 Lille Cedex, France
2Ecole Centrale de Lille, LAIL-URA CNRS D 1440, BP 48, Villeneuve d'Ascq Cédex 59651, France
3Université de Toulon et du Var, BP 132, La Garde Cedex 83957, France
Received 8 August 1996

Abstract

Proportional navigation is one of the most popular and one of the most used of the guidance laws. But the way it is studied is always the same: the acceleration needed to reach a known target is derived or analyzed. This way of studying guidance laws is called “the direct problem” by the authors. On the contrary, the problem considered here is to find, from the knowledge of a part of the trajectory of a maneuvering object, the target of this object. The authors call this way of studying guidance laws “the inverse problem”.