Aeronautics and astronautics – Missile stabilization or trajectory control – Automatic guidance
Patent
1985-03-28
1986-04-01
Jordan, Charles T.
Aeronautics and astronautics
Missile stabilization or trajectory control
Automatic guidance
114 23, 244 31, 244 323, F42B 15027
Patent
active
045792984
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to directional control means for airborne or seaborne missiles.
Most controllable vehicles such as missiles are steered by deflecting a set of control surfaces attached to the rear of the body. However, in recent years there has been a significant amount of research into the performance of canard control systems. This research has received impetus from the trend to extend the role and performance of existing missiles by the additon of modules; an example is the conversion of standard bombs into "smart" bombs. In such cases it is attractive, and simple in principle, to remove the front fuse and replace it by a target sensor, some rudimentary intelligence, and a control system to fly the missile towards a selected target. However, the protruding canard controls can cause a packaging problem in certain circumstances and, furthermore, their aerodynamic performance is not as good as might be expected; it might be thought that canards have an advantage over rear controls in that the lift force they generate in setting a statically stable missile at a trimmed incidence is in a direction to increase the missile's normal acceleration, whereas rear controls oppose the normal acceleration. However, if the missile carries lifting surfaces a few body diameters downstream of the canards, these surfaces tend to act as flow straighteners and remove the down-wash imparted by the canard controls. In doing so they experience a decrease in normal force roughly equal to the canard control normal force. The net effect is that the canards provide a pitching moment and generally only a small contribution to the normal acceleration of the missile.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved form of control which will be simple to apply but effective in directional control and this is achieved according to this invention by use of a deflectable nose, preferably being able to deflect in any plane.
Such a device would not affect the packaging characteristics of a missile, and because any nose lift due to nose deflection is accompanied by down-wash generally in the lee of the body rather than spread laterally in the flow, downstream lifting surfaces may not be so effective in removing down-wash. It will be realized that a very simple missile steering method can be achieved by the nose always being pointed towards the target. The forces acting on the missile would then fly the missile towards the target.
It is of course known that an aircraft is known which uses a droop nose, but this is merely to give visibility of the runway when landing the aircraft and no use is made of the droop nose for directional control.
Wind tunnel tests on the effectiveness of a deflectable nose on a typical missile body have been conducted, using a slender ogive-cylinder with a rounded nose, and part of the curved nose was made deflectable. No lifting surfaces were attached to the model, the objective being to determine the control effectiveness of the deflectable nose in the absence of control or lifting surface interference. Force and moment measurements were made at both subsonic and supersonic speeds and the results show that such control is effective and can be readily applied to vehicles operating in a fluid such as air or water.
The actual construction of such a device can be substantially varied but according to a simple arrangement the vehicle or missile has a nose mounted on a spherical bearing on the body of the vehicle or missile so that the axis of the nose can be deflected in relation to the axis of the body, driving means being provided to allow the nose angle to be varied, the driving means being applied between the nose and the body to allow universal orientation, but on a controlled pattern of the nose relative to the body.
The invention thus generally comprises a directional control for airborne and seaborne missiles comprising a body formed about a flight axis to move axially forward through the air or water, the body having a nose which forms a forward part which is deflectable angularly in relation t
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patent: 1250178 (1917-12-01), Hover
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patent: 3067682 (1962-12-01), Feldmann et al.
patent: 3069112 (1962-12-01), Patterson
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patent: 3262655 (1966-07-01), Gillespie
patent: 4076187 (1978-02-01), Metz
patent: 4142696 (1979-03-01), Nottingham
patent: 4399962 (1983-08-01), Wedertz et al.
patent: 4426048 (1984-01-01), Mildren
Navy Technical Disclosure Bulletin, vol. 5, No. 8, Aug. 1980, pp. 19-23, "Articulated Nose Missile Configuration".
Jordan Charles T.
The Commonwealth of Australia
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