Airborne Vehicle Guidance and Control Systems is a broad and wide- angled engineering and technological area for research, and continues to be important not only in military defense systems but also in industrial process control and in commercial transportation networks such as various Global Positioning Systems (GPS). The book fills a long-standing gap in the literature. The author is retired from the Air Force Institute and received the Air Force's Outstanding Civilian Career Service Award.

Though originally inspired by military applications, the advent of missile guidance and control systems has led to applications in a variety of fields -- in robotics, industrial process control, and in commercial transportation networks such as Global Positioning System technology. This book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the technology behind tactical and strategic missiles and the guidance, control, and instrumentation required to reach a given "target." Topics covered include: missile aerodynamic forces and moments, the missile mathematical model, weapon delivery, GPS (Global Positioning System) and TERCOM (terrain contour matching) guidance, cruise missile mechanization equations, and a detailed analysis of ballistic missile guidance laws. The presentation assumes familiarity with calculus, ordinary differential equations, and some knowledge of modern control theory. The text is replete wuith practical examples designed to illustrate important concepts. This book will be an essential resource for students of aeronautical/aerospace engineering, as well as practicing engineers involved in the design, development, and analysis of modern aerospace guidance and control systems.

Stringent demands on modern guided weapon systems require new approaches to guidance, control, and estimation. There are requirements for pinpoint accuracy, low cost per round, easy upgrade paths, enhanced performance in counter-measure environments, and the ability to track low-observable targets. Advances in Missile Guidance, Control, and Estimat

Design of Guidance and Control Systems for Tactical Missiles presents a modern, comprehensive study of the latest design methods for tactical missile guidance and control. It analyzes autopilot designs, seeker system designs, guidance laws and theories, and the internal and external disturbances affecting the performance factors of missile guidance control systems. The text combines detailed examination of key theories with practical coverage of methods for advanced missile guidance control systems. It is valuable content for professors and graduate-level students in missile guidance and control, as well as engineers and researchers who work in the area of tactical missile guidance and control.

The continuing evolving capability of guided weapons demands ever more knowledge of their development. This modern and comprehensive book covers the control aspect of guidance of missiles, torpedoes, robots, and even animal predators, from the viewpoint of the pursuer. The text studies trajectories, zones of interception, the required manoeuvre effort, time of flight, launch envelopes, and stability of the guidance process. Mathematics at first-year university level is the only prerequisite. Acquaintance with feedback control theory would be helpful to the reader. - Covers the control aspect of guidance of missiles, torpedoes, robots, and even animal predators, from the viewpoint of the pursuer - Studies trajectories, zones of interception, the required manoeuvre effort, time of flight, launch envelopes, and stability of the guidance process

Missile Guidance, Second Edition provides a timely survey of missile control and guidance theory, based on extensive work the author has done using the Lyapunov approach. This new edition also presents the Lyapunov-Bellman approach for choosing optimal parameters of the guidance laws, and direct and inverse optimal problems are considered. This material is important for readers working in the areas of optimization and optimal theory. This edition also contains updated coverage of guidance and control system components, since the efficiency of guidance laws depends on their realization. The text concludes with information on the new generation of intercept systems now in development.

Design of Guidance and Control Systems for Tactical Missiles presents a modern, comprehensive study of the latest design methods for tactical missile guidance and control. It analyzes autopilot designs, seeker system designs, guidance laws and theories, and the internal and external disturbances affecting the performance factors of missile guidance control systems. The text combines detailed examination of key theories with practical coverage of methods for advanced missile guidance control systems. It is valuable content for professors and graduate-level students in missile guidance and control, as well as engineers and researchers who work in the area of tactical missile guidance and control.

For both experts and novices, presents the principles of both tactical and strategic missile guidance in a common language, notation, and perspective, with numerous examples to illustrate the concepts. This revised edition (1st ed., 1990) adds three new chapters on the fundamentals of endoatmospheric ballistic targets; a new chapter showing how covariance analysis can be used to analyze missile guidance systems; two new appendices; and included Macintosh and IBM compatible formatted disks containing the FORTRAN code listings presented in the text. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the recent advances in the domain of optimal guidance, exploring the characteristics of various optimal guidance algorithms and their pros and cons. Optimal guidance is based on the concept of trajectory optimization, which minimizes the meaningful performance index while satisfying certain terminal constraints, and by properly designing the cost function the guidance command can serve as a desired pattern for a variety of mission objectives. The book allows readers to gain a deeper understanding of how optimal guidance law can be utilized to achieve different mission objectives for missiles and UAVs, and also explores the physical meaning and working principle of different new optimal guidance laws. In practice, this information is important in ensuring confidence in the performance and reliability of the guidance law when implementing it in a real-world system, especially in aerospace engineering where reliability is the first priority.

"Mackenzie has achieved a masterful synthesis of engrossing narrative, imaginative concepts, historical perspective, and social concern." Donald MacKenzie follows one line of technology—strategic ballistic missile guidance through a succession of weapons systems to reveal the workings of a world that is neither awesome nor unstoppable. He uncovers the parameters, the pressures, and the politics that make up the complex social construction of an equally complex technology.