Methods and apparatus for path planning for guided munitions

• US 8,038,062 B2
• Filed: 06/05/2007
• Issued: 10/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Raytheon Company (Rtx Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Raytheon Company (Rtx Corporation)
• Inventors: Kenefic, Richard J.
• Primary Examiner(s): HESS, DANIEL A
• Application Number:
  US11/758,340
• Publication Number:
  US 20100264216A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,596 Days
• Field of Search: 235/400, 244/3.15, 244/3.22
• US Class Current: 235/400
• CPC Class Codes: F42B 15/01 Arrangements thereon for guidance or control steering arrangements F42B10/60; aircraft flight control B64C; guidance systems other than those installed aboard F41G7/00, F41G9/00; locating by use of radio or other waves G01S; flight control in general G05D1/00; computer aspects G06]

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for providing path planning for a guided munition. In one embodiment, a boundary value problem solver is used to guide the munition from one configuration to another configuration at a different altitude using a waypoint-based search tree where a number of leaves grows linearly with the depth of the tree.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

(a) planning a path to a target for an airborne guided munition, comprising;

(b) initiating a search tree;

(c) selecting an aimpoint using waypoint information to generate a branch of the search tree for a potential path to the target;

(d) performing two point boundary value processing for the aimpoint to generate the branch;

(e) determining whether a violation occurs for the branch;

(f) adding the branch to the search tree if the violation did not occur;

(g) repeating steps (c)-(f) to form feasible paths to the target from the formed branches; and

(h) selecting a first one of the feasible paths.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the violation includes terrain impact and/or airspace violation.

3. The method according to claim 1, further including generating an upper bounding, in arrival time or angle, trajectory for the munition having a downrange value and an altitude value.

4. The method according to claim 3, further including generating a lower bounding, in arrival time or angle, trajectory for the munition.

5. The method according to claim 1, further including

computing forces on the munition and angle of attack for a given time;

solving for linear coefficients of a parametric representation for downrange and altitude coordinates;

selecting a next time estimate from roots of the parametric representation;

computing position and velocity for the munition for the next time estimate; and

testing for convergence.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the parametric representation includes a cubic.

7. The method according to claim 5, further including generating an upper bounding trajectory for the munition having an aimpoint and altitude.