This paper presents an optimal trajectory‐following guidance law for a gliding aerial vehicle, which integrates a receding horizon scheme with an indirect Gauss pseudospectral approach. By formulating the error dynamics of the trajectory‐following problem, an optimal guidance control framework is established. Within this framework, sigmoid function‐based weighting matrices are designed to shape the guidance commands and prevent control saturation, making the approach is particularly suitable for application in unpowered gliding vehicles. By using the Gauss indirect pseudospectral method, the optimal guidance law can be efficiently computed without solving matrix Riccati differential equations, performing explicit numerical integration, or constructing state‐transition matrices. Instead, it is obtained by solving algebraic equations within each guidance cycle. Numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed guidance law and its superior performance compared with existing trajectory‐following methods. Furthermore, the robustness of the guidance strategy under dispersions in initial conditions, vehicle mass, wind disturbances, and aerodynamic parameters is verified by Monte Carlo simulations.
Chen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.