Ground Asset Protection Guidance Against Hypersonic Strike Weapons with Uncertain Target Intent

This paper considers a ground strike scenario in which an incoming hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) threatens multiple high-value ground assets defended by an interceptor missile. Effective defense requires interceptor guidance that remains robust under uncertainty about which asset the HGV intends to strike. To address this challenge, a novel asset protection guidance (APG) law is developed for the interceptor’s midcourse phase that optimizes protection across all candidate assets. APG incorporates asset priority weights, allowing the defending force to shape the interceptor trajectory according to operational importance. The APG law is built on an asset protection index (API) that quantifies defensive capability using time margins between estimated HGV times to impact and interceptor times to intercept, computed via three-dimensional Dubins paths. The guidance law is derived by maximizing the time integral of the API using Pontryagin’s maximum principle. This formulation enables anticipatory guidance under plausible HGV maneuvering rather than a purely reactive response. Six-degree-of-freedom simulations compare APG with variants of proportional navigation. Results indicate that, relative to these variants, APG reduces peak acceleration demand and control effort and yields more favorable terminal engagement geometries, while maintaining performance across diverse launch geometries. These benefits are most pronounced when the HGV executes deceptive maneuvers or terminal retargeting.