SMART AUTONOMOUS GUIDANCE TECHNOLOGY STUDY

THERE IS A GROWING NEED FOR SMART AUTONOMOUS AIR DELIVERY OF CONVENTIONAL MUNITIONS. PRECISION ALL-WEATHER AUTONOMOUS GUIDANCE IS A FUNDAMENTAL BUILDING BLOCK FOR SUCH SYSTEMS. THE PROPOSED CONCEPT SYNTHESIS STUDY WILL INVESTIGATE AN INTEGRATED VISUAL-INERTIAL GUIDANCE CONCEPT THAT COMBINES IMAGING SENSORS AND INERTIAL COMPONENTS WITH IMAGE FLOW ALGORITHMS, INFORMATION ANALYSIS ALGORITHMS AND SITUATION CONTROL GUIDANCE TECHNIQUES. ADAPTIVE MISSION MANAGEMENT METHODS BASED ON IN-FLIGHT ACQUIRED INFORMATION WILL BE A MAJOR CONSIDERATION IN AVOIDING DETERCTION AND INTERCEPTION. THE BASELINE CONCEPT HAS THE FOLLOWING PRIMARY ELEMENTS: 1. PASSIVE MILLIMETER WAVE SENSOR COMPONENTS. 2. LOW-COST INERTIAL NAVIGATION COMPONENTS. 3. BINOCULAR AND QUADROCULAR SCENE TRACKING, RANGING AND MAPPING ALGORITHMS. 4. A SPHERICAL SEA LEVEL EARTH MODEL CONTAINING LOCAL TERRAIN ELEVATION REFERENCE DATA, GRAVITY VECTOR, AND CALENDAR TIME. 5. A MULTI-PROCESSOR COMPUTER, WITH AN OBJECT-ORIENTED OPERATION SYSTEM AND REALTIME SOFTWARE FOR SIGNAL PROCESSING, NAVIGATION AND MISSION MANGEMENT. THESE ELEMENTS WILL BE INTEGRATED TO ACHIEVE ALL-WEATHER PRECISION CLOSED-LOOP TERRAIN ELEVATION TRACKING AND NAVIGATION. SIX DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM (TWELVE PARAMETER) FLIGHT TRACKING WILL BE IMPLEMENTED, I.E. THREE POSITION, THREE VELOCITIES, THREE ATTITUDE ANGLES, AND THREE ATTITUDE ANGULAR RATES. THE OBJECTIVE WILL BE TO ACHIEVE LESS THAN ONE METER POSITION ACCURACY AND LESS THAN ONE MILLIRADIAN ANGULAR ACCURACY DURING ALL CRITICAL PHASES OF THE MISSION.