Kill Zone Analysis for a Bank to Turn Missile Target Engagement
With recent advances in missile and hypersonic vehicle technologies, the need for being able to accurately simulate missile target engagements has never been greater. Within this research, we examine a fully integrated missile target engagement environment. A MATLAB based application is developed with 3D animation capabilities to study missile target engagement and visualize them. The high fidelity environment is used to validate miss distance analysis with the results presented in relevant GNC textbooks [51] [52] and to examine how the kill zone varies with critical engagement parameters; e.g. initial engagement altitude, missile Mach, and missile maximum acceleration. A ray based binary search algorithm is used to estimate the kill zone region; i.e. the set of initial target starting conditions such that it will be "killed" The results show what is expected. The kill zone increases with larger initial missile Mach and maximum acceleration decreases with higher engagement altitude and higher target Mach. The environment is based on (1) a 6DOF bank to turn (BTT) missile, (2) a full aerodynamic stability derivative look up tables ranging over Mach number, angle of attack and sideslip angle (3) a standard atmosphere model, (4) actuator dynamics for each of the four cruciform fins, (5) seeker dynamics, (6) a nonlinear autopilot, (7) a guidance system with three guidance algorithms (i.e. PNG, optimal, differential game theory) (8) a 3DOF target model with three maneuverability models (i.e. constant speed, Shelton Turn Climb, Riggs Vergaz Turn Dive) Each of the subsystems are described within the research. The environment contains linearization, model analysis and control design features. A gain scheduled nonlinear BTT missile autopilot is presented here. Autopilot got sluggish as missile altitude increased and got aggressive as missile mach increased. In short, the environment is shown to be a very powerful tool for conducting missile target engagement research a research that could address multiple missiles and advanced targets. i Dedicated to my parents and the loving memory of my brother Ravi