Cooperative Target Capture using Predefined-time Consensus over Fixed and Switching Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces predefined-time consensus guidance laws for a swarm of interceptors to achieve simultaneous target capture without a leader, ensuring consensus in interception timing regardless of initial conditions.

Contribution

It develops a distributed guidance law that guarantees predefined-time consensus in interceptors' time-to-go, enabling coordinated target interception in dynamic network topologies.

Findings

Guarantees consensus in time-to-go within a predefined time.

Works for both stationary and moving targets.

Effective in static and switching network topologies.

Abstract

We propose predefined-time consensus-based cooperative guidance laws for a swarm of interceptors to simultaneously capture a target capable of executing various kinds of motions. Unlike leader-follower cooperative guidance techniques, the swarm of interceptors has no leader and each interceptor executes its own guidance command in a distributive fashion, thus obviating the residency of the mission over a single interceptor. We first design cooperative guidance commands subject to target's mobility, followed by the same when the target is stationary, and also account for interceptors' changing topologies. We further show through rigorous analysis that the proposed cooperative guidance laws guarantee consensus in the interceptors' time-to-go values within a predefined-time. The proposed design allows a feasible time of consensus in time-to-go to be set arbitrarily at will during the design regardless of the interceptors' initial time-to-go values, thereby ensuring a simultaneous target interception. We also demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed design via simulations for interceptors connected over static and dynamic networks.