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Missile Interceptor Guidance System Technology

Midcourse Guidance Techniques can significantly improve operational aspects as well
as overall performance of tactical missile systems. Operational requirements such as
conformal carriage in case of air-to-air-missiles or canister launch in case of
ship-based systems can only be met by a lock-after-launch capability of the guidance
system. On the other hand, seeker acquisition ranges may not be able to match the kine-
matic capabilities of the missile for a variety of reasons which may include adverse
weather conditions and counter-measures.
The paper addresses a number of operational aspects relevant to the design of
midcourse guidance systems and the essential prerequisites for their application. Basic
options of midcourse guidance, such as pure inertial, updated inertial and aided inertial
as well as the fundamental elements including inertial navigation and target prediction
are discussed. Proper initialization and alignment of the guidance and navigation system
are presented as further key issues. The alignment problem is defined and a number of
methods to achieve adequate alignment are described.
The paper concludes with a review of different techniques for the performance
assessment and the most important performance criteria for handover from midcourse to
terminal guidance.
Most of the missile systems which are currently in service and which became
operational in the 70's and early 80's rely on lock-before launch or require target radar
illumination during the full flight time or at least a significant part of it. Among the
few exceptions are long-range missiles such as sea-Skimmers which make use of inertial
midcourse guidance techniques during most of the flight before active radar homing takes
place in the terminal flight phase.
Inertial guidance techniques are very useful to support technical solutions to meet
these requirements. The basic technologies of inertial guidance are known since World
War II and have been reviewed in several papers and publications (/1/ to /4/). However,
for many years the hardware realization of inertial guidance was expensive and required
significant mass and volume, which was prohibitive for relati"ely small tactical mis-
siles. An overview of the technology available in the early 60's is presented in /5/.