Guidance, navigation, and control for munitions

The United States Army is currently looking for new methods of guiding munitions, which would allow the military to employ guided munitions in place of traditional munitions. This will give the US Army an edge on the battlefield and also allow the use of munitions in areas where traditional mortars and artillery cannot be used, including dense urban environments where collateral damage is not acceptable. In this thesis, an innovative approach to Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) is developed for a spinning projectile that utilizes a single axis canard actuation system. Utilizing the projectiles spin, the controller can provide a full range of aerodynamic forces, over the 360° of rotation, that provides maneuverability using only one actuator. This technique minimizes the need for multiple actuators and maintains the inherent aerodynamic stability provided by the spin. The GN&C system design described in this thesis consists of a tracking regulator for sinusoidally oscillating the canard system, a nonlinear state estimator for attitude measurement, and a guidance law to guide the projectile to a target. By combining the three components, we can demonstrate a closed-loop guidance system that will hit a target accurately at distances normally not achieved by an unguided projectile.