Gun Launched Guided Projectile

Ensuring U.S. technological superiority over potential adversaries through the use of emerging technologies to improve warfighter lethality, survivability, and mobility is central in the effort to maintain effective fighting forces.Conventional medium caliber projectiles fall short of desired effectiveness due to many physical and environmental factors such as aiming inaccuracy, component manufacturing tolerances, wind effects, etc.A guided projectile that could eliminate these factors at long (or short) ranges would substantially improve hit probability, increasing effective range and lethality. Longer standoff distances also contribute to higher warfighter survivability. Further,increased lethality of smaller caliber weapons contributes to greater force mobility.The objective of this Phase I effort is to develop a technically feasible concept for a medium caliber guided projectile and its guidance and control system. Our approach exploits recent advances in 'smart' material development to provide an innovativeprojectile flight control mechanism driven through a very simple communications link to its weapon-based transceiver. The flight control mechanism's simplicity and robust configuration offers high survivability for the severe launch and flight conditionsanticipated.We propose a 25 mm diameter projectile to highlight its simplicity and compactness, though the concept readily scales to the full range of interest (12mm to 40mm). This guided projectile will significantly increase effective range and lethality overcurrently available munitions, with direct application to a broad range of existing military and law enforcement weapon platforms.