Tactical Consideration in the Design of a Beam Rider System

ABSTRACT

The errors in beam rider system are largely due to lags in the tracker and missile servos. To a certain extent it is possible to reduce these errors by increasing the stiffness of the servo system, but this would demand larger band-widths and hence increased response to noise. There is therefore an optimum bandwidth giving the minimum possible miss-distance. In his approach to the design problem, Whitfield³ assumes the target flying directly towards the radar set and accelerating perpendicular to the radius vector. This is a hypothetical trajectory, and the design approach has therefore to be modified to suit a particular tactical situation that the beam rider system is most likely to face during its operation. The present paper attempts to present this modified design philosophy.