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Topic · Aerospace Engineering

Guidance and Control Systems

Guidance and Control Systems is a research topic within Aerospace Engineering. Science Explorer counts 19k research works in it since 1950. 9.8% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the development and analysis of missile guidance and control strategies, including pursuit-evasion games, impact time control, sliding mode guidance, cooperative attack scenarios, optimal control laws, and maneuvering target interception. The research covers a wide range of topics related to the guidance and control of missiles for various mission objectives.

  • Missile Guidance
  • Control
  • Pursuit-Evasion Games
  • Impact Time
  • Sliding Mode
  • Cooperative Attack
  • Integrated Guidance
  • Optimal Control
  • Maneuvering Targets
  • Autopilot
Research works
19k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
1.9k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.8%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+25%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
69% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Guidance and Control Systems

Which countries lead Guidance and Control Systems research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (2.3k and 365 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 2.3k works
  2. 2 United States 365 works
  3. 3 India 195 works
  4. 4 Russia 139 works
  5. 5 South Korea 96 works
  6. 6 Türkiye 65 works
  7. 7 United Kingdom 63 works
  8. 8 Italy 55 works
  9. 9 Germany 53 works
  10. 10 Canada 47 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 68.5%United States: 10.7%India: 5.7%Russia: 4.1%6 others listed: 11.1%69%largest
China2,348 · 68.5%United States365 · 10.7%India195 · 5.7%Russia139 · 4.1%6 others listed380 · 11.1%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Guidance and Control Systems research?

By volume in 2022-now, Northwestern Polytechnical University publishes the most Guidance and Control Systems research, followed by Beihang University and Beijing Institute of Technology.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Northwestern Polytechnical UniversityChina 187 works
  2. 2 Beihang UniversityChina 155 works
  3. 3 Beijing Institute of TechnologyChina 130 works
  4. 4 Harbin Institute of TechnologyChina 101 works
  5. 5 National University of Defense TechnologyChina 99 works
  6. 6 Nanjing University of Aeronautics and AstronauticsChina 95 works
  7. 7 Nanjing University of Science and TechnologyChina 87 works
  8. 8 Air Force Engineering UniversityChina 67 works
  9. 9 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 41 works
  10. 10 United States Department of DefenseUnited States 41 works

Who are the leading researchers in Guidance and Control Systems?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Guidance and Control Systems include Xiaogang Wang, H. Vincent Poor and Seyedali Mirjalili.

  1. 1 Xiaogang Wang China 260k citations
  2. 2 H. Vincent Poor United States 165k citations
  3. 3 Seyedali Mirjalili Australia 154k citations
  4. 4 Stephen Boyd United States 142k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Guidance and Control Systems?

The most cited paper in Guidance and Control Systems is "Reexamination of the perfectness concept for equilibrium points in extensive games" (Reinhard Selten, 1975), with 3,387 citations. Next come "Randomized Kinodynamic Planning" (3,309) and "Dynamic surface control for a class of nonlinear systems" (2,449).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Reexamination of the perfectness concept for equilibrium points in extensive games Reinhard Selten · International Journal of Game Theory Open access Mar 1975 3,387
2 Randomized Kinodynamic Planning Steven M. LaValle, James Kuffner · The International Journal of Robotics Research May 2001 3,309
3 Dynamic surface control for a class of nonlinear systems D. Swaroop, J. Karl Hedrick, Pak Yip et al. · IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control Oct 2000 2,449
4 Survey of maneuvering targettracking . part I: dynamic models X. Rong Li, Vesselin P. Jilkov · IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems Oct 2003 2,404
5 Geometric tracking control of a quadrotor UAV on SE(3) Taeyoung Lee, Melvin Leok, N. Harris McClamroch Conference paper Dec 2010 1,397
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Guidance and Control Systems research done?

The largest centres of Guidance and Control Systems research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Xi'an (China), Nanjing (China) and Harbin (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Xi'an and Harbin.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 611 works
  2. 2 Xi'anChina 357 works
  3. 3 NanjingChina 248 works
  4. 4 HarbinChina 141 works
  5. 5 ChangshaChina 118 works
  6. 6 ShanghaiChina 98 works
  7. 7 MoscowRussia 61 works
  8. 8 WuhanChina 56 works
  9. 9 TianjinChina 55 works
  10. 10 DalianChina 54 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. Xi'anCN · 357.0 works12×
  2. HarbinCN · 141.0 works9.0×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Guidance and Control Systems than the world average.

See Guidance and Control Systems on the map

Where is the best place to study Guidance and Control Systems?

Among universities, judged by research, Beihang University, Northwestern Polytechnical University and Dalian Maritime University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 17.62%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Dalian Maritime Univ…Harbin Institute of …Beihang UniversityNorthwestern Polytec…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Beihang UniversityChina 71.215.3%40.8×156 +40.9%
2Northwestern Polytechnical UniversityChina 67.113.8%47.5×187 +47.7%
3Dalian Maritime UniversityChina 65.723.6%26.3×33 +32.6%
4Harbin Institute of TechnologyChina 64.415.7%17.9×101 +43.5%
5Beijing Institute of TechnologyChina 63.312.2%32.0×130 +43.0%
6Nanyang Technological UniversitySingapore 62.732.9%3.0×8 +14.3%
7University of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaChina 60.421.9%8.4×33 +186.8%
8Nanjing University of Aeronautics and AstronauticsChina 57.79.4%31.0×95 +77.1%
9Nankai UniversityChina 57.122.1%7.4×18 +71.6%
10National University of Defense TechnologyChina 56.29.3%37.0×99 +21.9%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Guidance and Control Systems, country by country

Is Guidance and Control Systems research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 25% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Guidance and Control Systems.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Guidance and Control Systems as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.017% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%0.030%Guidance and Control Systems0.017% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Guidance and Control Systems over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Guidance and Control Systems9.8% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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