System Modeling Coursework

Class 39 - 41: Introduction to Missile dynamics

P.R. VENKATESWARAN
Faculty, Instrumentation and Control Engineering,
Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal
Karnataka 576 104 INDIA
Ph: 0820 2925154, 2925152
Fax: 0820 2571071
Email: pr.venkat@manipal.edu, prv_i@yahoo.com
Web address: http://www.esnips.com/web/SystemModelingClassNotes
 WARNING!

• I claim no originality in all these notes. These are the

compilation from various sources for the purpose of
delivering lectures. I humbly acknowledge the
wonderful help provided by the original sources in
this compilation.
• For best results, it is always suggested you read the
source material.

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 Definition for a missile

• A missile can be defined as an aerospace vehicle

with varying guidance capabilities that is self
propelled through space for the purpose of inflicting
damage on a designated target.
• Fabricated for air-to-air, surface to air and surface to
surface roles.

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 Components of a missile

• Propulsion system
• Warhead section
• Guidance system
• Control surfaces

Choice is between a guided and a non guided

missile!

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 Components of a guided missile

• Airframe
• Guidance
• Motor (or propulsion)
• Warhead

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 Airframe

• The type and size depends on

– Guidance characteristics
– Motor size
– Warhead size

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 Guidance

• Guidance is the means by which a missile steers or is

steered to a target.
• The type of guidance is also dependent on the
motor, warhead and threat.
• More specifically, the type of guidance chosen is
dependent on the overall weapon system in which
the missile will be used, on the type of threat the
missile will be used against, the characteristics of the
threat target, and other factors.

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 Motor

• The motor characteristics depends on

– Guidance requirements
– The threat
– Airframe characteristics

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 Warhead

• Dependent on the threat and type of guidance

• The common procedure is to size the guidance
requirements (e.g. accuracy, response time, range
capability) from the threat, select an airframe that
can deliver the required aerodynamic performance,
size the motor based on threat and airframe
considerations and size the warhead from guidance
and airframe considerations.

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 Common missile structure

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 Basic Weapon construction

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 Basic factors affecting the missile design

• Threat
• Operating environment
• Cost
• State of the art
– Since the last three is normally known, the missile design
centers on meeting the threat in the environment with
the state of the art, at minimum cost.

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 Factors affecting motor type selection

• Aerodynamic heating due to the incremental missile

velocity
• Aerodynamic drag, which decreases missile velocity
• Maximum altitude at which the missile must
perform
• Maximum and minimum intercept ranges required.

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 Types of missile motors: All Boost

• It typically will make the

missile accelerate rapidly,
causing high peak
velocities. However, this
causes high missile drag,
high aerodynamic heating,
and short time of flight, for
a given range
• This is suitable for a rear
hemisphere, tail chase
encounter.

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 Types of Missile Motors: All Sustain

• It has low acceleration, resulting

in lower aerodynamic drag and
longer time of flight, for a given
range.
• It can be used in a look up
engagement, and to provide
sufficient velocity for
maneuvering at high altitude.
• The motor is suitable for head
on engagements, or in look-up
engagements at high altitudes

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 Types of missile motors: Boost Sustain

• The boost sustain motor

represents an attempt to
combine the best features
of the all-boost and all-
sustain designs.

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 Missile development stages

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 Missile speed

• Guided tactical missiles are sometimes referred to according

to their airspeed relative to the speed of sound and their
type of propulsion system
• The highest rate of airspeed that can be reached safely and
still ensure correct operation is considered as that missile’s
classification. The common classification are
– Subsonic (airspeeds less than mach 1)
– Sonic (airspeeds equal to mach 1)
– Supersonic (airspeeds ranging between mach 1 and mach 5)
– Hypersonic (airspeeds exceeding mach 5)

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 Skid to turn (STT) missile

• It is the commonly used in analysis and design of

surface to air and air to air weapon systems
• The reason is the inertial cross coupling between
roll, pitch and yaw is negligible.
• Both aerodynamics and rigid body dynamics are
highly non linear

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 Comparison of weapon system characteristics

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 Response of the system

• The pitch/yaw plane rotational responses behave

like a spring mass damper system. It is given as:

• The equation can also be written as:

where

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 Typical Pitch – Yaw network

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 Modeling drag and lift

• For the purposes of control design, drag can be

modeled by parabolic drag form

• If Lift is considered as control, it is subjected to the

constraint where W is the weight and
gm(v) represents the load factor limit, which may
arise due to a structural limit, control surface
actuator, or autopilot stability considerations. In
general, lift is a function of missile speed.

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 Load factor expression

• The dynamics for the angle of attack (AOA), α, as well as dα/dt, load
factor nz and pitch rate are commonly modeled after the short period
approximations of longitudinal motion.
• The short period of attack is given by the following transfer function

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 Load factor command system

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 Dynamics of load factor in pitch plane

• The load factor and angle of attack transfer

functions are identical in form.
• Specifically, the dynamics for the load factor in the
pitch plane, nz, can be modeled by the following
transfer function

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 Dynamics of load factor in pitch plane

• The parameters ζ,ω and Tα can be found by linear

analysis of the entire closed loop system.
• This transfer function is valid provided that the
laod factor being modeled is located at the centre
of pressure, that is , the point ahead of the centre
of gravity where the effect of pitch acceleration
and horizontal tail force cancel.

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 Load factor command system

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 The Missile Guidance system model

• Guidance is the means by which a missile steers, or

is steered, to a target.
• A guided missile is guided according to a certain
guidance law.
• The inputs are target location and missile to target
separation.
• The desired output is that the missile have the same
location as the target

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 Major subsystems of Missile Guidance System

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 A typical roll stabilized missile guidance/kinematic loop

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 General Problems of Guidance System Design

1. Help to maximize the single shot kill probability (SSKP)

by minimizing the miss distance
2. Sources of miss distance
• Initial heading error
• Acceleration bias
• Gyro drifts (if gyros are used in seeker stabilisation)
• Glint (scintillation noise)
• Receiver noise
• Fading noise
• Angle noise (due to varying refraction with frequency diversity)

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 General Problems of Guidance System Design

2. Preserve stability of the parasitic attitude loop

3. Filtering
• Limit power consumption and saturation of the
actuators
• Prevent noise from excessive hitting of dynamic range
limits, such as auto pilot g limits

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 Functions of the missile seeker subsystem

1. Provide the measurements of target motion required to

mechanise the guidance law.
2. Track the target with the antenna or other energy
receiving device (eg. Radar, infrared, laser or optical)
3. Track the target continuously after acquisition
4. Measure the LOS (Line of sight) angular rate dλ/dt.
5. Stabilise the seeker against a missile pitching rate dθm/dt
(also, yawing rate) that may be much larger than the LOS
rate dλ/dt to be measured.
6. Measure the closing velocity Vc.

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 Missile seeker showing geometry

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 Typical block diagram of a seeker subsystem

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 References

• Missile Guidance and Control Systems, George M.

Siouris, Springer, 2004 ISBN 0387007261

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 And, before we break…

• Nothing is permanent in this wicked world.

Not even our troubles.
– Charlie Chaplin

• Thanks for listening…

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