Process / pipelineGuidance Control

Proportional Navigation

Proportional Navigation (PN) is a guidance law that generates command accelerations proportional to the rate of change of the line-of-sight angle between a pursuer and target. Introduced by Lin-Hsiung Chu in the 1950s, it became the foundation of modern missile guidance systems. PN solves the pursuit-evasion problem by ensuring that the pursuer intercepts a moving target with minimal computational overhead.

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Sources

  1. Knox, W. P. (1971). On optimal proportional navigation. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, AES-7(3), 417–426. DOI: 10.1109/TAES.1971.310293
  2. Guelman, M. (1971). Proportional navigation with a maneuvering target. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, AES-8(3), 364–371. DOI: 10.1109/TAES.1972.307385
  3. Lin, C. F., & Tsai, L. L. (2007). Guidance Laws for Missiles. In Modern Control Systems for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Butterworth-Heinemann. link

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ScholarGateProportional Navigation (Proportional Navigation Guidance Law). Retrieved 2026-06-04 from https://scholargate.app/en/aerospace/proportional-navigation