Fail Safe Missile Guidance System

A few days ago, I was watching a video from First Post ( A popular YouTube Channel for global news and views), The news was about Ukraine-Russia war. The anchor Palki Sharma was talking about Guided Missiles used by Ukraine in the war.

Those guided missiles were supplied by the US. Initially the accuracy of these missiles hitting the target was 50% and as days passed the accuracy has come down 6-7%. The reason is as follows. The missiles use GPS for navigation. GPS signals are required to locate the target to hit. Even 50% accuracy itself very bad performance. Then how it has come down to 6-7%?

The reason for poor accuracy is that Russians were able to jam the GPS signal. All guided missiles have become unguided missiles and lost the coordinates to hit the target.

These are long-range missiles with a reported range of around 300 kilometers (186 miles) known as Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS): . They can carry a variety of warheads, including single explosives or cluster munitions that disperse smaller bomblets over a wide area. ATACMS are particularly significant because they allow Ukraine to strike targets well behind Russian lines, something they couldn't do before.

The issue is everyone knows that the missiles works based on GPS and GPS can be jammed. This looks like a major design fault by the US. And these missiles cost around $1 million. This is not a small amount. If converted into Indian rupees it is around Rs 8 crores. A product, designed at a cost of Rs 8 crore can be made ineffective in a war zone.

Is there any better way of designing such a war head which can not jammed or misguided? Yes, there is , provided we use the latest technology available.

The idea is simple which does not rely on any external data like GPS coordinates. We can feed inside the missile before launching the entire image of that terrain and the target to be attacked. For example, if the range of the missiles is 300KM, then we need to load the missile an image of 400 x 400 sq km data. There will be a camera in the missile taking images of the ground over which the missile is flying. By comparing the image ( map of that area) and the image from the camera can be compared and it’s current location, target location and the path to be taken can be decided.

There are challenges in this method. Cameras will give good image in the day time and bad quality image during night. While night vision and thermal cameras can improve low-light performance, they can still be hampered by bad weather conditions like heavy fog , dust or sand storm. This can be solved by using night vision cameras or thermal imaging cameras. Both can be deployed to get an accurate current location.

Let us assume there is no reliable camera image. Even then, we can pre-program the route before firing the missile as a back up information. The accuracy will be low, but it may hit some enemy target.

There is another challenge. Even though we can capture the image of the location at all light conditions, then, we need high speed processing of the images before the missile moves to another location. This challenge is also solvable. Currently the processing capacity of micro controllers have increased multi-fold. More over it is possible to implement Artificial Intelligence inside such micro controllers to do image processing and taking decisions.

The cameras, especially the thermal imaging cameras can identify locations where a large concentration of human beings and live stocks are available and avoid bombing that area. Or the missile can be programmed to locate thickly populated area at that moment and bomb that area too.

While GPS gives only location and altitude, these cameras give more information like type of area, what is the content of the area. Whether it is a city, village, military establishment etc and it can take decisions independently as per programmed policies.

While night vision and thermal cameras can improve low-light performance, they can still be hampered by bad weather conditions like heavy fog or cloud cover. Under this condition, GPS will be of great use , provided it is not jammed by the enemy.

There is another method to guide missile in flight. Use multiple conventional radars along the border. This infrastructure should be available. Get the coordinates from these radars and guide the missile in flight by adjusting its course.

So technology is available to make the missiles serve its purpose more accurately