Optimal and Non-Committal Guidance of an Air-to-Air Missile
Abstract
When military units need new capability, hardware is often more than 5-7 years out. While a new weapon development may take many years, often software improving performance of current hardware can be developed, tested, and fielded in significantly less time and at less cost. The goal of this thesis is to increase Air-to-Air (A-A) weapon range and lethality by a two-prong approach. Optimal trajectories were generated and applied to the guidance of an A-A weapon in a 6 Degree of Freedom (DOF) simulation. Second, a concept for non-committal guidance (NCG) was developed by mixing traditional pursuit guidance and proportional navigation to allow for lethal endgames, while minimizing missile maneuvers in response to target maneuvers. NCG is logic that minimizes maneuvering in response to target maneuvering for as long as possible. This increases energy available at endgame and minimizes the chance of an overshoot. These two concepts were analyzed for a short range, medium range, and long-range air breathing missiles via simulation. Trajectory solutions were evaluated using the 6 DOF simulations to ensure their reliability, repeatability, and optimality. Compared to proportional navigation with a constant lofting angle, the proposed NCG scheme with an optimized lofting profile was shown to increase weapon range and weapon lethality against a maneuvering target.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1225597
Entities
People
- William B. Iii Thames
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School