Improved advanced missile guidance system against a hypersonic target with short maneuvering time

Abstract

An advanced surface-teair missile system with relatively low speed missiles was proposed previously by the authors. It was designed to protect a wide spread area(e.g., an airport) from hypersonic slightlyor non-maneuvering targets. In this paper, an extended study of the system to targets, which maneuver short time just before the assault, is made. The key feature of the proposed system is intercepting the target, while it is not meneuvering or is maneuvering slightly, by one of several missiles launched sequentially with time intervals. In the case of the missiles controlled with aerodynamic control surfaces, the most serious situation on this scenario occurs when they should intercept the target at a high altitude. In order to overcome the difficulty due to insufficient dynamic pressure, an auxiliary thruster is employed as an additional missile lateral acceleration control device. Numerical simulation studies showed that the auxiliary thruster improves the missile maneuverability(1ateral acceleration capability) at a high altitude satisfactorily and, consequently, the proposed system with plural missiles works effectively by appropriate selection of launching time interval.