This article proposes a novel fuzzy virtual force （FVF） method for unmanned aerial vehicle （UAV） path planning in compli-cated environment. An integrated mathematical model of UAV path planning based on virtual force （VF） is constructed and the corresponding optimal solving method under the given indicators is presented. Specifically,a fixed step method is developed to reduce computational cost and the reachable condition of path planning is proved. The Bayesian belief network and fuzzy logic reasoning theories are applied to setting the path planning parameters adaptively,which can reflect the battlefield situation dy-namically and precisely. A new way of combining threats is proposed to solve the local minima problem completely. Simulation results prove the feasibility and usefulness of using FVF for UAV path planning. Performance comparisons between the FVF method and the A＊ search algorithm demonstrate that the proposed approach is fast enough to meet the real-time requirements of the online path planning problems.
Guidance problems with flight time constraints are considered in this article. A new virtual leader scheme is used for design of guidance laws with time constraints. The core idea of this scheme is to adopt a virtual leader for real missiles to convert a guidance problem with time constraints to a nonlinear tracking problem,thereby making it possible to settle the problem with a variety of control methods. A novel time-constrained guidance （TCG） law, which can control the flight time of missiles to a prescribed time,is designed by using the virtual leader scheme and stability method. The TCG law is a combination of the well-known proportional navigation guidance（PNG） law and the feedback of flight time error. What＇ s more, this law is free of singularities and hence yields better performances in comparison with optimal guidance laws with time constraints. Nonlinear simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed law.
