The target maneuvers
Direction, acceleration, and reachable position change during the engagement.
Predictive terminal guidance
Predict maneuvering threats. Enable the intercept.
Predictive Guidance Systems provides a software-centered guidance capability designed to improve hit-to-kill performance against maneuvering targets by continually updating the predicted intercept solution as the engagement evolves.
01 / The mission problem
The target does not stay where the original intercept solution expected it to be.
Maneuvering ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, advanced reentry vehicles, and other high-dynamics targets can change the engagement geometry during flight. The defense must keep solving a moving problem.
The intercept point moves
The future meeting point between interceptor and target shifts with the maneuver.
Reaction time compresses
Closing velocity leaves less time to detect the change and command an effective response.
The endgame pays the price
Late corrections can consume the energy and control authority needed to complete the intercept.
Where is the target?
Track observed target motion and respond as the engagement changes.
Where is the engagement going?
Continuously update where the future intercept should occur.
Conceptual illustration only. It does not depict proprietary algorithm details or characterize every modern guidance architecture.
02 / Why engage
A documented guidance concept with a substantial test history.
PGS advances a modern implementation of predictive-guidance technology that received independent and U.S. Government evaluation. That history does not establish performance against current threats. It provides a serious engineering basis for a controlled modern comparison.
The customer owns the mission. PGS helps answer a focused guidance question.
Can a predictive guidance layer improve the selected interceptor’s performance against the selected maneuvering-threat set—using the same seeker data, physical limits, and engagement conditions as the current baseline?
Review the technical record →6-DOFGovernment and independent simulation environments in the historical record
23Principal threat cases in the public Army evaluation
429Total engagement scenarios after battlespace expansion
12 + 4Added performance in 12 principal cases; matched the baseline in four more
03 / Where PGS fits
Don’t replace. Augment.
Keep the existing engagement architecture wherever interfaces and data are sufficient. PGS is a software-centered guidance capability intended to augment the terminal endgame by continually updating the predicted path toward the engagement system’s designated aimpoint.
Sensors · Radar · Seeker · Tracking · AI
Observe, classify, estimate, and communicate target motion.
Predictive Guidance Systems
Use target-motion information to continually update the predicted path toward the designated aimpoint.
Autopilot · Control · DACS · Actuation
Translate the guidance solution into achievable vehicle response.
Interceptor · Drone · Kill Vehicle
Execute the engagement within platform-specific limits.
PGS is designed to complement modern sensing, autonomy, and vehicle-control systems—not replace them. Mission autonomy above. Predictive intercept guidance below. Vehicle controls execute the maneuver.
The terminal handoff
Keep the existing engagement. Add predictive guidance for the endgame.
Existing guidance
Navigation and current guidance bring the interceptor into the engagement region.
PGS predicts
When terminal target-motion data is available, PGS continually updates the evolving intercept solution.
Vehicle controls respond
The autopilot, DACS, actuators, and vehicle execute within platform-specific limits.
The engagement system identifies and designates the lethal aimpoint. PGS addresses how the interceptor reaches it. Handoff timing, interfaces, and qualification remain platform-specific.
04 / The plan
The next step is not another argument. It is a comparison.
Hold the engagement conditions constant, change the guidance function, and measure the result.
Current guidance vs. PGS.
Run both guidance approaches against the same representative target set and physical constraints.
Miss distanceDirect-hit probabilityManeuver requirementDivert / control useRemaining control marginVelocity / energyTime-to-interceptManeuver robustnessNoise / latency robustnessConventional-target performanceReal-time computation
Connect PGS to the selected representative simulation or interceptor environment.
Benchmark PGS against the current guidance baseline under identical conditions.
Move into higher-fidelity integration, hardware-in-the-loop, and ultimately flight testing only when the measured results support progression.
Run the comparison. Let the data decide.
05 / Mission success
A better intercept solution may preserve what matters most in the endgame.
If modern testing confirms an advantage, a more efficient predictive path may translate into measurable performance where the engagement is least forgiving.
Fewer unnecessary corrections
Reduce pursuit behavior that consumes time and performance margin.
Preserved velocity and energy
Carry more usable performance into the terminal engagement.
More control authority
Retain greater capacity to respond to late target motion.
Lower miss distance
Continually refine the future meeting point as the geometry evolves.
Expanded engagement options
Potentially create more usable choices within the interceptor’s physical limits.
Better inventory effectiveness
Support more effective use of limited interceptor capacity against difficult threats.
06 / Current relevance
The problem is current.
Major U.S. and allied programs are actively addressing maneuvering and hypersonic threats through modular interceptor architectures, advanced seekers, engagement algorithms, guidance and control, and kill-vehicle performance.
Open innovation pathways
The Missile Defense Agency’s Advanced Capability Concepts mechanism remains open to innovative technologies that can contribute to missile defense.
Official opportunity →Glide-phase interception
Northrop Grumman describes GPI as purpose-built to detect, track, control, and engage hypersonic threats, with advanced seekers and modular software.
Program overview →Seeker and terminal guidance data
Boeing’s current PAC-3 seeker materials emphasize active guidance data for target acquisition, optimal aim point, and terminal guidance.
Product card →Predictive terminal guidance
Europe’s HYDIS program identifies predictive terminal guidance against highly maneuvering targets as a major technical challenge.
OCCAR program →Agile guidance and maneuverability
HYDEF combines advanced guidance, sensors, actuators, and high maneuverability for counter-hypersonic interception.
OCCAR program →A defined guidance problem
PGS is not searching for a problem. The need to intercept maneuvering targets is an active requirement across missile-defense programs.
References describe the current mission environment only. No agency, program, or company listed here has endorsed PGS.
07 / Historical evidence
Tested before. Ready to be tested again.
The historical record exists to answer one question: why should a modern engineer or program office take the technology seriously enough to run a controlled comparison? It does not establish current performance against modern classified guidance systems or modern hypersonic threats.
Blind and comparative evaluation
Outside organizations evaluated the earlier implementation in six-degree-of-freedom simulation without relying only on inventor-controlled results.
Government-controlled test environment
A public Army report documents black-box integration, fixed configurations, shared inputs, 23 principal threat cases, and 429 total scenarios.
Added performance in 12 cases
The Army reported added performance in 12 of 23 principal cases and parity with the baseline in four more—while finding that no single guidance law was best against every threat.
08 / The age objection
Old principle does not mean old implementation.
Aerospace still relies on guidance and estimation principles established decades ago. Their continuing value comes from implementation with modern sensors, processors, seekers, actuators, software, and system architectures.
Inertial navigation
Long-standing principle, continuously advanced through modern sensing and computation.
Proportional navigation
Established intercept logic that remains part of modern guidance practice.
Kalman filtering
A decades-old mathematical framework still central to state estimation.
Predictive guidance
Apply target-motion information to update the future intercept solution.
Modern maneuvering threats
Evaluate the implementation against today’s systems, targets, and constraints.
Age alone is not a technical test. The relevant question is whether a modern implementation improves performance against today’s maneuvering threats.
Modern sensors. Modern processors. Modern threats. Predictive guidance evaluated under modern conditions.
09 / The unfinished question
The historical process stopped before the decisive sequence was complete.
Transition became entangled in source-code disclosure, intellectual-property protection, classified-data access, personnel dependency, facility clearance, contracting structure, ownership and representation, and export-control or provenance questions.
What was identified
A protected object-code-first pathway
Review the protected executable first, compare performance in simulation, and move toward hardware-in-the-loop and flight testing only if the results warrant it.
What never concluded
The full modern test sequence
The technical question was never definitively resolved through contemporary integration, HIL, and flight testing.
10 / Platform vision
One core guidance capability. Multiple platform-specific applications.
If modern testing confirms the capability, PGS could support platform-specific integration across different interceptor families and domains.
Potential applications include terminal missile defense, glide-phase interception, naval missile defense, counter-hypersonic systems, counter-UAS interceptor drones, and future air-, ground-, sea-, or space-based interceptors.
Terminal and glide-phase
Potential integration into selected architectures where maneuvering targets stress the terminal solution.
Naval, air, ground, and space
Platform-specific implementations within the interfaces, limits, and requirements of each host system.
Counter-UAS and interceptor drones
Potential application to autonomous interceptors pursuing evasive or high-dynamics targets.
Flexible commercial structureLicensing can be structured by platform, field of use, customer, or application—without forcing a single-company, all-rights outcome.
Technical review · Controlled simulation · Integration
The next step is not another argument. It is a comparison.
PGS is available for technical briefings, mission-fit reviews, controlled comparative simulation, and integration discussions with interceptor developers, autonomy companies, prime contractors, and government program offices.
hello@hittokill.com