Computing variable bounds in the conceptual design phase of guided weapon systems

摘要

The performance of guided weapon systems is primarily expressed by the end-of-flight effect, routinely approximated by the miss distance. It is however equally important that certain system variables of interest are kept within given bounds all along the duration of the flight. In this paper, we propose a method to evaluate such bounds in conceptual design studies that requires very modest computational resources and is suitable for many practical situations encountered in the analysis and design of guided weapon systems. The method allows quick assessments of the criticality of certain system requirements and investigating possible tradeoffs in case of conflicts between requirements. The method is illustrated with two numerical examples.