Course Correction Fuze Concept Analysis for In-Service 155 mm Spin-Stabilized Gunnery Projectiles

Guidance and control of artillery projectiles will be critical to future military operations. With the large quantities of unguided artillery shells stockpiled around the world, the course correction fuze could provide an attractive and cost-effective solution for munition control. This paper proposes a drag brake and a spin brake course correction fuze concept, and compares their performances against the roll-decoupled four canard configuration. Specific guidance and control functions were designed and tuned for each. The analysis was based on a typical 155 mm spin-stabilized artillery projectile. Dispersion sources included variations in muzzle velocity and gun’s azimuth and elevation relative to nominal conditions, and wind velocity perturbations. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to analyze the delivery accuracy. Results show that the drag brake concept compensates for muzzle velocity and longitudinal wind perturbations efficiently. The spin brake concept compensates for perturbations in lateral wind efficiently and, to a lesser extent, in gun’s azimuth. The rolldecoupled four canard configuration counteracts gun’s azimuth and elevation perturbations very well. A course correction fuze combining the drag brake and spin brake concepts is shown as a good solution to increase the projectile accuracy when all disturbances studied are present.

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