40mm Low/Medium Velocity Air Bursting Munitions System

The purpose of this proposal is to assess the use of Micro Power Radar (MPR) to aid in providing the individual Marine Infantryman with air bursting munitions to enhance his battlefield effectiveness. Current fuzes compute the time of flight and set the fuze for a time or counting revolutions with an input to the system to tell it to detonate after a specific number of turns. These technologies allow for significant variability in the actual height of the airburst thereby limiting the expected effectiveness. The addition of non-inertial sensors to the munitions could ameliorate the problems faced by current fuze technology. Based on emitting and detecting very low amplitude and short voltage impulses, MPR has a sensitive window for accurately detecting reflections from boundaries and could be implemented as a smart fuze that always knows how far the round is from the impact point. Designing a fuze that can be depended upon to burst at 2 meters (or another to be determined specific value) from the target would greatly increase the effectiveness of the round. A fire control system or possibly a weapon upgrade kit that attaches to the current legacy systems device for programming the round’s impact height if variability is part of the design. Beyond using MPR for smart fuzes, it could be applied to munitions testing or other impact testing in the commercial sector.