Controlled Ballistic Trajectory For Small Caliber Spin-Stabilized Smart Munitions

Abstract

The dynamics of bullets is examined to develop an approach for their active controls. The precession and nutation is observed to be the dominant modes in their trajectory and sufficiently slow to be perturbed. Different flow effectors are considered and a novel low bandwidth actuation scheme is introduced. The control approach with this new actuation scheme requires bandwidths no higher than the spin rate of the projectile. An optimal control is developed to maximize the trajectory correction within the control authority. It is shown that a more tractable controller, i.e., less computationally intensive, can be developed by utilizing the natural dynamics of precession and nutation in spinning rigid bodies. iii