Realization and Evaluation of IIR Seeker via Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Egyptian Armed Forces, Egypt.

Abstract

The simulation is indispensable for systems design and analysis especially flight control systems. Among the simulation techniques is the Hardware-in-Loop-Simulation (HILS) which links the hardware and software for synthesis with the objective of overcoming any of the simplifying assumptions during modeling. The benefits of this type of simulation are to cut down the required number of flight trials and to increase the confidence level of realizability of the system design. Therefore, this paper addresses the implementation and evaluation of Image Infra-Red (IIR) seeker system, where the system integration is carried out via HILS for research and development (R&D). The IIR seeker components including;
thermal camera, video tracker, and steering system are analyzed and tested individually. Interfacing problems are deeply analyzed and figured out in the assembled overall system for performance evaluation of IIR seeker. The real thermal target coordinates provided from IIR seeker are applied to a six-degrees-of freedom (6DOF) flight simulation model for homing guidance systems. The experimental setup associated with the system is presented from which the simulation and experimental results highlight the effect of various components constituting the IIR seeker. Smoothing filters are proposed to enhance the interception of targets performing uncertain\random maneuvers and to overcome the dynamics of the video tracker and the steering system towards achieving missile-target interception with good trajectory.

Keywords