Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System

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Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System

Sarvesh S Rane1 ,Vinay.Y.Patil2


Department of Mechanical Engineering
Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, Vidyanagar, Bengaluru-562157, India
E-mail: 1sarveshrane16@gmail.com 2vinayypatil@gmail.com
Abstract— The military defense is an important operation secure military tactical operations. Besides the
in today’s world. Presently, every kilometer of territory is communication aspect, the highly directive nature of a
protected from threat by highly mechanized systems and laser beam is also used as a directed energy laser weapon.
human forces. The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon These highly powerful and light weighted directed energy
System is one such system that helps to bring low altitude laser weapons are very cost-effective countermeasures for
surgical strike with no collateral damage. This highly used airborne threats. The combination of both Precision and
technological system has played an important role in laser technology can give a wide range of advantage for
military sector to guide the pilot in action to precisely the missile operators to effectively target the enemies and
target the enemy and their objects to destroy effectively. successfully destroy the focused object without any time
The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System is a delay. As, time being the important factor in battlefield,
combination of Hydra 70 rocket and guided laser precision kill weapon system will never go wrong in
technology to precisely locate the target and focus the determining and destroying the targeted enemies.
missile to destroy. The system also being the top priority The section I provide a brief introduction to
by the pilot as it provides more information on distance APKWS and its journey in defense sector. While in section
from the target to the aircraft with seconds of movement II the different sources give their opinion on this system to
over the war field. The laser guided missile is high show case the present and future techniques. The section
intensity beam light that can damage the enemy objects III is completely of the specifications, modules and steps in
without any it’s minute presence. The APKWS is also on operating an APKWS are mentioned in section IV.
urge of getting upgraded to higher version by the different
defense organization of the world.
II. RELATED RESEARCHES
Index terms- Precision, Mechanized system, Missile Laser-guided rocket are special features of the
military defense system. They are bound to perform the
tactical operations as carried under many difficult
I. INTRODUCTION circumstances. The Military has always been the part of
this great system to safeguard the territories of the country
The quality, condition or being the exact and
from the counter forces. The detail analysis from various
accurate is the precision. Precision has always been
sources has been studied and understood as shown:
recognized by the military strategists. It is one of the
According to the author Hemani Kaushal [1],
attribute along with the operational range, striking power,
since the first demonstration of laser technology, it took
volume of fire and portability. The state of the art precision
almost 50 years to completely implement practically in
guided rockets combine all these attributes to make them
military tactical operations. The various prospects of laser
potent force multiplier in the contemporary battlefield. The
technology for tactical military applications are discussed.
emergence and subsequent maturity of precision guided
Laser technology addresses the need of present battlefield
rockets, made possible mainly due to advances in
that requires the ability to detect the target at longer
electronics, optoelectronics and optics, is one of the most
distances and exchange massive amount of information in
significant developments of twentieth century warfare.
a secure and timely manner.
In the recent days after the terror attack that
Anil K Maini [2] described the target accuracy
happened in India, Indian Air Force had launched an Air
with the Precision Guided Munitions. In this paper the
strike across the Line of Control. The strike was carried out
writer clearly explains about the precision being one of the
with a precision guided missile with the help of Dassault
attribute among all the other attributes such as operational
Mirrage 2000 lightweight fighter. The strike was efficiently
range, striking power etc. There is also discussion
and successfully done without any collateral damage. The
regarding the laser guided munitions, infrared (IR) guided
smart rockets belong to the group of advanced fire power
weapons, radar guided weapons and GPS/ INS guided
rockets, which mainly includes projectiles fired from land
weapons.
or ship based military platforms, surface to air and air to
The writer Larry Chasteen [3] said in her paper
air missiles and aerially delivered bombs. These weapons
that countries are growing towards the newly built strong
called smart weapons employ one or more guidance
defense system such as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude
techniques to hit the target more precisely with minimized
Defense System), MD (Missile Defense) etc. The writer
collateral damage than would be possible with
also points towards the preparation to cope with
conventional unguided weapons also called dumb
uncertainty as one of the biggest strategic challenges faced
weapons. Launched from a variety of military platforms
by all organizations. There are few tools for coping with
including land vehicles, aircraft, ships, submarines or even
strategic uncertainty, especially over medium to long-term
by individual soldiers on the ground, precision strike
horizons. One technique that has proved its usefulness is
weapons exemplify the concept of a low cost threat forcing
scenario planning. Scenario planning can be used it to cope
a high cost and complicated defense mechanism. Military
effectively with multiple challenges and limited resources.
operations often demand a secure and timely transmission
According to the Annual Report 2017-2018 [4],
of a massive amount of information from one place to
the stand-off Anti-Tank (SANT) guided missile, Smart Anti
another. Hence, the laser technology plays an important
Air Field Weapon (SAAW), New Family of Munitions
role in pointing with precise target on enemies in
(NFM) and Prototype Directed Energy Laser System were
battlefields. Thus, one such system named Advanced
developed in fiscal year. These missiles have effectively
Precision Kill Weapon System Laser-guided rocket.
been in the precision and laser technology working
The probability of intercepting a laser signal is
together for the military defense. Higher upgraded versions
very low due to its narrow beam divergence and coherent
are the focused objective of the different defense
optical beam, making the laser a suitable candidate for
organizations.
According to the BAE Systems website citation
[5], there are 13 launch platforms qualified with APKWS
guidance section which are combat proven, flexible and
modular designs, cost effective and are prepared for
increased demands. This increased advantage has brought
great demands in other territories of the world.
The Article in international society [6] for optical Figure 2: Blocking shield placed behind the receiver to lower the
engineering states that semi-active laser guided decoding probability of interception.
system is based on FPGA. The system is designed to
receive the echo pulse through a 4-qundrant laser sensor The laser guided missile is used for 3-D
and process the digital laser pulses through analog digital dimensional vision control, positioning or level control.
conversion, which are some fixed interval encoding signal The basic principal behind this is the time of flight for
reflected from the target. The decoding system improves measuring to and from travel time between the transmitter
the adjustment accuracy of the laser seeker, which reach and the target. The measuring range can be from few
about 50 times in theory compared to current technology. meters to kilometers. The equipment is incorporated with
According to writer Tutul Gogoi [7], Precision thermal equalizer and cooling system considering a wide
guided munitions are often driven with the help of a range of temperature in the battle field environment. The
special kind of laser beam, pointing onto the target of cooling system will enable the system to be under
interest which can be a ground based stationary target or a temperature controlled required by the pilot in action.
moving one. LASTEC has been engaged in developing The reflected and scattered target’s light is
laser warning sensor (LWS) and laser countermeasure captured by an OE system installed on the weapon that
systems for defense applications. For testing the sensors computes the necessary flight path corrections and sends
and countermeasure systems the laser source plays an back the control signal to focus the weapon on the target.
important role. The efficacies of LWS and countermeasure The pulses are encoded to reduce the risk of
systems directly or indirectly depend upon the laser jamming or spoofing. Q switched laser which is high-
sources being used. intensity pulsed beam laser used to achieve short pulse
On the other hand, it is also the future scope of lengths. This laser is used to frequency doubled to bring
every organizations and departments to look into the needs the laser beam into visible range.
and upgraded versions of these systems for protected The communication between two parties can be
environment of unaware terror that happens in society and easily spoofed, sniffed, decoded or position monitored. So,
a helping procedure for the military to make themselves laser communication, also known as free space optics
sure about their strength in defending ones territory. (FSO), is a good choice owing to its high carrier frequency,
ultra-low latency and immunity towards EM radiation.
These links allow LOS communication between two
III. METHODOLOGY parties to have a very low probability of detection,
In the battlefield environment, the timelines interception or exploitation (LPD/LPI/LPE).
between Identifying, tracking and shooting are very critical  LPD means preventing the enemy from detecting
to ensure the continued success of the war fighters. This the transmission.
requires improved pointing, targeting and designating  LPI is preventing an enemy from tapping on to
capabilities during military operations. Laser range-finders the information.
and target designators use high-resolution scanning or  LPE is concerned with the prevention of
staring techniques to determine the distance and speed exploitation of signals.
from an object that is located beyond the point-blank The interception of laser beam is possible due to
range. The block diagram of laser range finder and target spill over beam or interception by another beam. Hence, In
designator is shown in the figure 1. order to avoid this problem, a blocking shield will lower
the probability of interception as shown in the figure 2.
Modulator
Modulator Q-switched
Q-switched Range
Range The blocking shield will not allow any external signals to
and laser Polarizer finder
and
encoder
encoder
laser Polarizer finder
optics
optics
O/
P
come in contact with intended laser beam used for the
target. Hence, the laser beam doesn’t undergo any spoofing
Telescope
Telescope
or lost of intelligence data during the operation in
battlefield.
Power
Power supply
supply
The APKWS is a combination of Hydra 70
unguided rocket and laser technology to prepare the system
To Display
for precision guidance of the missile to hit the target
effectively. The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System
Range
Range
counter
counter
Comparator
Comparator Gain
Gain
controlled
controlled
Low
Low noise
front
noise
front end
end
Detector
Detector (APKWS) guidance kit transforms an unguided 2.75-inch
I/P
amplifier
amplifier (70 millimeter) rocket into a precision-guided rocket,
giving war fighters a low-cost surgical strike capability. It
Collecting
Collecting
Lens
is the design transform of Hydra 70 unguided rockets with
Lens
Clock
Clock Detection
Detection
Threshold
a laser guidance kit to turn them into precision guided
Threshold
rockets.
The APKWS rocket redefines precision by hitting
Figure 1: Block diagram of laser guided missile.
Transmitted
Transmitted
Beam Blocking
Blocking shield
shield
the target with pinpoint accuracy and minimal collateral
Beam
damage- critical for air to ground missions when there is
Transmitter
Transmitter
only one shot. The APKWS rocket bridges the gap between
Receiver
Receiver
unguided rockets and anti-armor munitions, consistently 4. Command bit/byte checks.
delivering pinpoint to soft targets at a low cost, that no 5. Seekers optics receives laser energy from target.
other system can match. The specifications of APKWS 6. Seeker electronics convert laser intensity to determine
system are shown in Table 1. target angle.
7. IMU senses rocket pitch, yaw and roll.
1. Length 73.8 in 8. Autopilot uses IMU data and seeker data to calculate
flaperon positions, which are sent to the Control
2. Diameter 2.75 in Actuation System (CAS).
9. CAS moves flaperons to commanded locations and
airframe reacts to hit target.
3. Wingspan 9.55 in

4. Weight 15 kg

5. Speed 1,000 m/s

6. Range 1,100–5,000 m

7. Guidance Semi-active laser homing

Figure 3: Internal structure of APKWS missile.


8. Motor Hydra 70 motors
In the above figure 3, the APKWS seekers are
seen which look like small wings of a plane. These seekers
9. Warhead Hydra 70 warheads
help in guiding the target location for missile to hit
effectively without any collateral damage. These seeker
head mounted at the tip of the missile. The seeker head is
Table 1: AKWS specifications. technically a suite of extremely sensitive and expensive
sensors that pick up on infrared light. The missile in itself
An upgraded version of APKWS has been cannot really ‘See’ its target - it can’t differentiate between
planned by the military to upgrade laser-guided rockets a hot air balloon and an F-35, it just sees the track that the
that enable fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned target it has locked on makes and after targeting the object
aerial vehicles (UAVs) to attack lightly armored vehicles, and confirming it, the fighter aircraft launches missile with
bunkers, field fortifications, cars, and trucks with electro- the help of pilot in action.
optical smart munitions. These new APKWS II weapons
will upgrade the current 2.75-inch rocket system to a semi- V. CONCLUSION
active laser-guided precision weapon for the military. This The need of every hour has become today’s most
new upgraded level is designed and will be executed by important circumstance to deal with every other threat in
British Aerospace System. this world. The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System
The combination of Hydra 70 which is a unguided laser guided rocket, an electronic warfare system can be
rocket with the laser technology gives the advanced best suited for all the type of environment such as ground,
precision kill weapon system. This precision guided air and maritime. This system can be best utilized in the
missile will have an opportunity to undergo under any field during an aerial strike as it guides the system to a
circumstances to operate according to the BAE systems. proper target with less collateral damage on its
Also, the system will have target detections and range surroundings.
finders to help the fighter aircraft pilot to precisely locate The system is proven to be more combat
the target. Presently, Laser guided mechanism has become operational and can be the leading system in defense for
the part of different operations carried out by the military. present and future generations. There are no such demerits
The laser guided when used is a series of ray emitting from that cannot be filled as advantages and there are no such
the system to destroy the target based on the input rays things which are impossible in this world. The BAE
from the target. The laser light which is emitted to destroy System and the other organizations of the world are on its
can be intercepted from an external mechanism but this can urge, to improve the present system with better technology
be avoided by using a shield. This shield will act like a and improved robust system. The robust systems which
protection from the external spoofing. will have an alternative to the failing system during
battlefield. With all of these on-going developments and
current state of art, technology would dominate the battle
IV. RESULTS
field in the near future.
The steps in operating an APKWS are given
below; key to the launcher would be the Power, VI. REFERENCES
Command, and Data Port (PCDP) allowing the [1] Hemani Kaushal and Georges Kaddoum, member
following launch tasks: IEEE “Applications of Lasers for Tactical Military
1. Identifying the munitions type. Operations “Citation information: DOI
2. Transfer power to the warhead/missile. 10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2755678, IEEE Access 2017.
3. Feed guidance and fuzing data to the munitions.
[2] Anil K. Maini Handbook of Defense Electronics and [6] “The System of Semi-active Laser Guidance Based on
Optronics: Fundamentals, Technologies and Systems, First FPGA”https://www.researchgate.net/publication/25854887
Edition, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2018. 5 Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for
[3] Larry Chasteen “How to Reduce Russia/China Optical Engineering 8200:22- · November 2011.
concerns on missile defense” University of Texas at Dallas, [7] Tutul Gogoi*, Rajni Kumar, Joshua Anand Gladwin,
978-1-5090-1613-6/17/$31.00 IEEE 2017. and Vivek Goyal “Testing and Evaluation of High Energy
[4] Ministry of Defense “Annual Report 2017-2018” Portable Laser Source used as a Target Designator along
Government of India 2018. with a Laser Seeker” Defence Science Journal, Vol. 68,
[5] “Advanced Precision Kill weapon system” BAE No. 5, September 2018.
Systems plc. BAE Systems CS-16-E18-002 2018.

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