A flight control system for high-speed missiles that uses actuated pins to enable high-g vectoring is under development at Georgia Institute of Technology's aerospace transportation advanced systems laboratory. The system would provide flight control for missiles with a flight time as short as 4s, to intercept a mortar, or longer for anti-ballistic missile defence.
A proof-of-concept study tested a four-petal sabot, fitted with fixed flight-control pins, by firing it from a 75mm (2.9in) gun bore at the US Army Research Laboratory's transonic range at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Preliminary results showed that a 14g divert manoeuvre could be achieved with a missile travelling at Mach 4.
The actuated pins extend into the boundary-layer flow to provide different flight-control effects, such as pitch control. Flat and round pins were tested and rectangular pins were found to provide the greatest vectoring force. "We gained 20% more force with rectangular pins than round ones," says Georgia research engineer Kevin Massey.
The new work includes development of actuators for the pins and six degree-of-freedom simulations to develop the pins' control laws.
Source: Flight International