Microactuators for Projectile Flight Control Systems: a Feasibility Study

New concepts for microactivated flight control of projectiles have been investigated for operation in both subsonic and supersonic flight regimes. A successful concept can provide an inexpensive flight control device with many control redundancies, and it can reduce size weight and energy consumption of the control system. Two promising concepts have been explored in detail. The first one consists of a microflap in the form of a delta wing of 3 mm base by 4 mm height, which can be deployed and activated at a location on the ogive of the projectile or at the beginning of its cylindrical afterbody. The second concept is based on microballoons, which can be inflated and change the local pressure distribution on the projectile. A computational-fluid-dynamics (CFD) computer code has been used to model these two flight control concepts