Composite Flywheels for Kinetic Vehicle Attitude Control

As BMDO strives to advance capabilities, one goal is to develop interceptor technologies that enable low mass, highly efficient, extremely agile interceptors to defend against current and projected BMDO threats. Specifically, they have identified a needfor components that reduce size and mass, improve control, reduce on-board power consumption, increase accuracy of guidance and control, and increase divert capability. Recent advances in the flywheel attitude control systems are leading the way to fullyfunctional, non-saturating KV control systems. These devices utilize a Quoin-developed concept defined as an integrating module to insure that the flywheels maintain a near zero average displacement. Expanding this concept to manufacture the flywheelsfrom composite materials (such as T-1000 carbon fibers) offer the potential for vastly increased operating speeds. For the flywheel ACS, doubling the operating speed can reduce the flywheel weight by 50% or the diameter by 25%. This technology willprovide improved performance and substantially lower program cost for the National Missile Defense Program.