Research and Flight Test on the Terminal Guidance Control Technology for Cruising Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The Cruising Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (CUAV) exemplifies an advanced system integrating UAV and munitions technology. The primary challenge lies in devising strategies to achieve precision strikes. Achieving precision strikes is a critical combat mission for CUAV and serves as the primary focus of this research. This paper introduces a three-loop pseudo-angle-of-attack acceleration autopilot design with proportional–integral (PI) correction, overcoming the limitations of existing two-loop and three-loop systems. The existing two-loop acceleration autopilot with PI correction suffers from low robustness, whereas the three-loop autopilot exhibits slow response to acceleration deviations. The proposed design overcomes these shortcomings by optimizing the autopilot for high-dynamic and fast-response scenarios. The design methodology leverages pole assignment, referencing the pole co-circle method and accommodating servo bandwidth limitations. A comparison of the designed three-loop acceleration autopilot with PI correction with other acceleration autopilots reveals superior accuracy advantages. The reliability and robustness of the proposed autopilot were validated through flight tests, achieving a drop point accuracy of less than 0.5 m. This study demonstrates the engineering application of a pseudo-angle-of-attack three-loop acceleration autopilot with PI correction, designed using the pole assignment method, on a short-range CUAV. Future efforts will focus on optimizing the autopilot to further enhance its adaptability and robustness.