Alternative Flight Control Methods for Supersonic/Hypersonic Cruise Missiles

The need to bring ordinance on ‘targets of opportunity’ quickly before the target moves to another location is of paramount importance. A cruise missile that can travel at sustained hypersonic velocities could provide such a capability by reducing the time to target by a factor of 5 or more. Sustained flights at hypersonic velocities provide several technical challenges. Hypersonic control surfaces are typically thick, leading to high drag. High drag requires a high thrust power plant. Technology reducing drag will provide a very favorable trade to the overall missile system. KBM with GTRI propose a concept that utilizes actuators inserting small pins into the missile flow field to provide stability and control for a supersonic tailless missile. Inserting pins at the proper location can achieve high enough pressures on the body of a projectile or missile to produce high speed turns. Preliminary simplified simulation results have demonstrated that pins could be used to make a dynamically unstable tailless missile configuration fly a practically straight path.