How Does Missile Lock Work_ _ Askscience

8/9/2019 How Does Missile Lock Work_ _ Askscience

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We make our world significant by the courageof our questions and by the depth of our

answers. -Carl Sagan,

Radar, when a plane has a lock then it sends

out more pings (well, what ever the light

equivalent of sonar pings is).

permalink parent

[] Guysmiley777 39 points 3 years ago

There are different types of radar guided

missiles.

Semi-active radar homing (SARH) missiles

have a radar RECEIVER in them, but no

transmitter. They rely on the launching

aircraft to "paint" the target with their

radar so the missile can home in on the

radar reflections from the target.

Active radar homing (ARH) missiles

contain their own onboard full radar set.

It can transmit and receive radar signals

on its own and does not need support

from the launching aircraft. These types

of radars are much weaker than the ones

carried by fighter aircraft, so what

usually happens is right as the missile is

fired it's told the target's relative locationand velocity. The missile guidance system

then flies it using inertial guidance until it

deems itself close enough to go active

and turn on its own radar. Some active

radar guided missiles can also receive

updated target location info from a

datalink (so the launching aircraft CAN if

it wants keep the still quiet missile

updated on the target position and

velocity).

Couple of things. Radar frequency inaircraft is very much dictated by antenna

size. The smaller the antenna, the higher

frequency that has to be used. Also,

there are various "modes" that radars

operate in. Modern radars can track

multiple targets while also looking for new

targets by moving the antenna in certain

patterns as well as varying the

transmitted pulse rate (and AESA radars

can basically do black fucking magic).

Here's the point I'm slowly trudging to: to

guide a SARH missile like the AIM-7

Sparrow, the launching radar has to go

into a certain transmit mode (called CW

for continuous wave). This basically

screams "I AM SHOOTING AT YOU NOW!"

to a radar warning receiver. That's how a

pilot knows "he's got a lock on me".

With active radar missiles like the AIM-

120 AMRAAM, the onboard radar is in a

distinct band and also loudly and

repeatedly informs the target aircraft

that it's tracking and you're in deep shit.Active radar homing has the advantages

of letting the launching aircraft get the

hell out of dodge immediately after launch

as well as giving the target less warning

time, as the missile doesn't go loud until

it's relatively close.

This is a REALLY good intro site to radar

Switch to dark theme

Cosmos
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3/14

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permalink parent

[] [deleted]4 points 3 years ago

Have there been any uses of radars

that attempt to simulate a lock

without actually launching (or

perhaps even without acquiring a

lock) to deceive an enemy craft into

thinking they are in a worse position

than they are? For example,

convincing someone on your tailthat they need to evade a missile

that doesn't exist?

permalink parent

[] Guysmiley777 7 points 3 yea rsago

Well, not for convincing

someone on your tail per se, as

you'd need to be within the

radar's azimuth and elevat ion

limits, but yes in trainingexercises sneaky pilots have

been known to intentionally

change radar modes to bluff

that they've launched a missile

to try and get the other side

to turn away and avoid what

they think is an incoming

missile. If both sides are using

SARH missiles it becomes a

game of rocket powered

chicken.

And like I said, AESA radars areFNM (fucking near magic) with

what they can do. Not having

to bother with a mechanically

slewed antenna opens up a ton

of possibilities, including as

functioning as highly versatile

jammers. If you're used to a

radar being something that

sweeps across the sky, check

out this video of early F-35

radar testing, notice how the

radar seems to conjure up

multiple independent beams

basically at will.

permalink parent


It sounds like all the radar ones are

easily susceptible to jamming. And if

there is a data link, then

theoretically you could redirect the

missile (well prolly not, cus the linkis encrypted.. but still)

permalink parent

[] Guysmiley777 16 points 3 yea rsago*

Electronic countermeasures are

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4/14

a really gnarly topic, made

worse by the understandable

level of secrecy on both sides.

The battle between ECM and

ECCM (yes, that's a term,

'electronic counter-

countermeasures) is never

ending.

Couple of things to start with.

#1: You have to know and be

able to transmit on the same

frequency as the threat. #2: Ifyou do so by sheer transmitter

power, you are broadcasting a

gigantic "I AM HERE" beacon.

Many modern radar guided

missiles have a Home on Jam

mode where they can decide

to merrily guide themselves to

a jamming transmitter.

It gets to be layers on layers

on layers of attack versus

defence. Take something likethe AN/ALE-50 and ALE-55

towed decoys, which are

expendable devices towed

behind the aircraft that will re-

transmit a "faked" radar return

to an approaching missile

which appears to be more

attractive than the real radar

return.

permalink parent

[] neurohero [S] 2 points 3 years ago

That's great, thanks. This is exactly

what I was looking for!

permalink parent

[] tsk05 -1 points 3 years ago*

This is explained in equal or more

detail (mostly more) in the manual

for the game Falcon 4 AF. Lower,

Guysmiley777 mentions ECM andECCM, this is again explained in fair

detail in the Falcon 4 AF manual

(which is like a thousand pages

long). Suggest picking the game up

if you want to learn more.

permalink parent

load more comments(1 reply)

[] MyNewAlias 1 point 3 years ago

It's called a pulse.permalink parent

[] bitwaba 0 points 3 years ago

I'd imagine a ping is still a ping, no

matter the medium nor source form

(sound through water, light through
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5/14

air).

They work the same way. Send a

PING, get a PONG.

permalink parent

[] Neato 1 point 3 years ago

It's very variable depending on what kind

of missle you have. You can have passive

(listens only), active (emits and listens to

track), semi-active (active part of thetime) and some variations of those. It

also matters if it was launched from the

surface to air (SAM) or Air to ground, or

air to air.

Many planes can tell the difference

between different radar types. From ones

that simply spot things in the air, to one

thats try to measure the exact distance,

height and angle, to ones that provide

direct high-frequency guidance to the

missiles after launch. Knowing which you

are being tracked for determines how apilot reacts.

permalink parent

[] PhilxBefore 0 points 3 years ago

Radar, not sonar.

Sonar (soundwaves through a medium)

are useless at supersonic speeds.

permalink parent


Yeah, that's why I referred to the

light (Radar) equivalent of sonar

pings.

permalink parent

[] ytwang -4 points 3 years ago

Radar uses radio waves. The

light equivalent would be Lidar.

permalink parent

[] bitwaba 3 points 3 yea rsago

Radio waves are light. I

think the Laser equivalent

would be Lidar.

permalink parent

[] ytwang 2 points 3years ago

No, radio waves are

EM, but not light.

Light is the portion

of the EM spectrum

from NIR to UV. On

the other hand, the

first letter of LASER

stands for "light".

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6/14

[] neurohero [S] 1 point 3years ago*

I'm sorry if my ignorance

is showing, but I was

given to believe that

radio waves WERE light,

just not of the visible

spectrum.

edit: Never mind, I see

that you've explained it

below. Thanks!

permalink parent

[] tootom -1 points 3 yea rsago

...Well, radio waves are a

form of light. It's just that

coherent laser light and

incoherent light used in

radar have such different

properties from an

engineering view

permalink parent

[] JJEE

Electrical Enginee ring |AppliedElectromagnetics

6 points 3 years ago

You have this

backwards.

permalink parent

[] ytwang 2 points 3years ago

No, radio waves are

EM, but not light.

Light is the portion

of the EM spectrum

from NIR to UV.

permalink parent


[] voracioush 8 points 3 years ago

Lots of planes have infrared detectors

mounted throughout the plane with stored

signatures built into the software that detect

and compare to known missle plume

signatures. So once a rocket is within some

arbitrary range a missle detection warning

would probably go off and also automatically

launch flares (IR missle) or chaff (radar

missle). Or perhaps both.I had a sensors class in college and a grad

student did a presentation on IR sensors

mounted on command staff planes and how

they could detec t ground based launches

(Surface to Air or RPGs). I would imagine air to

air rockets work on the same principles.
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7/14

permalink parent


This is a question for another thread, but

I'm intrigued as to how chaff works.

permalink parent

[] LongUsername 7 points 3 years ago

It basically just provides a large

radar reflection.

You have a plane radar signaturethat the missile is following, then it

splits in two. Missile can only follow

one target, and which one it

chooses would be based on how the

missile was programmed.

permalink parent

[] voracioush 2 points 3 years ago

From wikipedia: A radar

countermeasure in which aircraft or

other targets spread a cloud ofsmall, thin pieces of aluminium,

metalized glass fiber or plastic,

which either appears as a cluster of

secondary targets on radar screens

or swamps the screen with multiple

returns.

Wiki Link

permalink parent

[] Neato 2 points 3 years ago

Chaff is made to reflect radar

signals. It is cut to specific lengths

depending on the type of signal

tracking it. This chaff is essentially

thrown up like a ninja throws up a

smoke cloud, confusing the seeker

and giving it massive reflections.

Flares are for IR sensors and work a

similar way except they emit very

bright IR signals to try to overpower

or lead off the seeker from the

exhaust and compression heat (fromwing edges, etc).

permalink parent

[] afrofuturist 5 points 3 years ago

Put "Combat Flight Sim Buff" after this man's

name. He deserves it.

permalink parent

[] geosmin 2 points 3 years ago

What would you say is the best combat flight

simulator?

permalink parent

[] obsCUR 9 points 3 years ago

best as in most realistic: dcs : a10, but
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8/14

only with 1 plane, the a10

best as in overall realistic and with 6

planes: lock on :flaming cliffs.

permalink parent

[] Aero_3 points 3 years ago

Best non-modern flight simulator:

Rise of Flight

I've heard good things about

DCS:Black Shark, too.

permalink parent

[] Incursus 3 points 3 years ago

I just would like to add that

IL2-1946 and Falcon 4.0 are

also still relevant.

permalink parent

[] Aero_2 points 3 yea rsago

Definitely. Though IL2 has

a lot of "UFO" russianaircraft with questionable

performance capabilities.

Not a problem in

singleplayer, but slightly

annoying online.

permalink parent

[] Jerkmaan 1 point 3 years ago

do/can you get in dogfights online in

those sims?will I feel left out while playing if I

don't invest in one of those cool

flight control board and joystick

combo?

permalink parent

[] obsCUR 2 points 3 years ago

lock on can be played online

thru hyperlobby. also il2 '46.

one needs some sort of

joystick, nothing fancy though,something like 4 axis, 8 button

+ hat. don't worry about

force- feedback, though some

will debate. those fancy flight

stick with lights and open-

close latches and all that bull

that borders on silly, well, no...

permalink parent

[] geosmin 1 point 3 years ago

What about a good introduction to

the genre?

permalink parent

[] obsCUR 1 point 3 years ago*

we begin by assuming we're
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9/14

not talking about arcade flight

combat games: H.A.W.X,

blazing angels, ace

combat,etc.. ( i actually

worked on both hawx 1 and

hawx 2, proud me, what can i

say.. ).

many have started with

novalogic's f22 lightning series,

but they're kind of old. Cute

games, really trying to blend

sim features and broadaccessibility in a product that

would run on a 486.

lock on has detailed

documentation and tutorials.

il2 '46 has, as introductory

features, tutorials, easy mode

controls and flight model. i still

play il2 '46 a lot. you can really

start to get a feel for the

game, and the genre for that

matter, if you just start thequick mission editor, choose a

plane and the game just

spawns you mid air, no fuss.

After that, you can start

changing payloads, adding

ground targets, enemy

airplanes, start missions at

night, tweak realism settings,

etc, just from the quick editor.

this is how i play the game

mostly, endless fun that is, but

than again, maybe it's just

me..

permalink parent

[] lotti_talia 1 point 3 years ago

Seems to be more of an engineer type

question, I've always wondered this though.

pertinent .

permalink parent


[] Tobyirl 6 points 3 years ago

Originally a Kalman Filterwas the technique used as

the tracking method for missiles but I imagine now

that things have advanced and perhaps a particle

filter is used instead.

permalink

[] 20bees 5 points 3 years agoKalman filters never go out of style.

Regular accelerometers don't compensate for

gravity so you don't get a perfect reading of

the displacement of the object as you move it

- you also have the force of gravity mixed in.

So it's not as good on its own.
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10/14

With a Kalman filter, you can use the an

accelerometer to provide a reference point and

edit out drift in your gyro as well as increase

it's accuracy.

an example:

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?

id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A23188

permalink parent

[] melb_ev 2 points 3 years ago

A standard Kalman filter is not really that

good for such a situation, its very noisy

and has jitter issues. That one was a

good first try but was dropped and they

switch to a complementary filter taken

from another project called DCM which

performs well.

When dealing with nonlinear sensors a

serious Extended Kalman Filter is needed

for very good attitude estimation, for

example as shown in this PDF in real

math:

http://wiki.openpilot.org/download/attach

permalink parent

[] shavera

Strong Force | Qua rk-Gluon Plasm a | Particle Je ts 5

points 3 years ago

As a funny sidenote, we are very fond of

Kalman Filters in particle physics. We do a lot

of our tracking of particles through our

detectors using Kalman Fittings.permalink parent

[] freedryk

Fluid Dynamics | Atmospheric Science | Clima teModels

2 points 3 years ago

Weather prediction and historical climate

reanalysis also use the Kalman filter to

incorporate observations into the

computer models.

permalink parent

[] typon 1 point 3 years ago

I write this as I work on Verilog code for

an advanced PLL (most common Kalman

Filter).

permalink parent


Here's a cool video of the seeker head on a German

air to air missile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcx8Xke9It4

permalink


that looks very expensive to just blow up.
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11/14

permalink parent

[] LongUsername 16 points 3 years ago

It could be very expensive to NOT blow

up the target.

permalink parent

[] Neato 10 points 3 years ago

It might be a 100-500k USD missile, but

that bomber or fighter it takes down

could be worth hundreds of millions andthat plane's target could be the lives of a

lot of your people.

permalink parent


Unit cost is 400,000 Euro

permalink parent

[] thecrikster 3 points 3 years ago

That's kind of creepy no? Looks too much like

a real eyeball.

permalink parent

[] Aero_1 point 3 years ago

The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows

this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting

where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from

where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a

difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem

uses deviations to generate corrective commands

to drive the missile from a position where it is to a

position where it isn't, and arriving at a position

where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the

position where it is, is now the position that it

wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was,

is now the position that it isn't. In the event that

the position that it is in is not the position that it

wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the

variation being the difference between where the

missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is

considered to be a significant factor, it too may becorrected by the GEA. However, the missile must

also know where it was.

The missile guidance computer scenario works as

follows. Because a variation has modified some of

the information the missile has obtained, it is not

sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it

isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It

now subtracts where it should be from where it

wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this

from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and

where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and

its variation, which is called error.

JOKE:

http://asuwlink.uwyo.edu/~jimkirk/guidance.wav

permalink

[] garblesnarky 11 points 3 years ago

That reads kind of like Douglas Adams
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12/14

permalink parent


Thanks for your reply. I was wondering more

about how the missile guidance system knows

where to go, not how it knows where it is.

ppod answered that quite eloquently.

permalink parent


My response was intended to behumorous. Its a transcript of the .wav I

linked to (which was widely circulated in

engineering/military circles several years

ago). It's engineer humor in that the

description technically makes sense, it

just doesn't offer any real insight into

how the system works.

permalink parent

[] Enphuego 2 points 3 years ago

Like the engineer and the hot airballoon joke?

permalink parent


Precisely.

The Balloonist

A man in a hot air balloon

realized he was lost. He

reduced altitude and spotted a

man below. He descended a bitmore and shouted, "Excuse me,

can you help me? I promised a

friend I would meet him half an

hour ago, but I don't know

where I am."

The man below replied, "You

are in a hot air balloon

hovering approximately 30 feet

about the ground. You are

between 42 and 44 degrees

north latitude and between 83

and 85 degrees westlongitude."

"You must be an engineer,"

said the balloonist. "I am,"

replied the man, "but how did

you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist,

"everything you told me is

technically correct, but I have

no idea what to make of your

information, and the fact is I

am still lost."

The man below responded,

"You must be a manager." "I

am," replied the balloonist,

"how did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't

know where you are or where
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13/14

you are going. You made a

promise which you have no

idea how to keep, and you

expect me to solve your

problem. The fact is you are

exactly in the same position

you were in before we met,

but now, somehow, it's my

fault."

permalink parent

[] Xmonty 1 point 3 years ago

OH MY GOD I almost lost it reading this.

Garblesnarky thinks this reads like Douglas

Adams, and I don't totally disagree, but this

reads like the godawful technical

reference pubs the Navy puts out.

permalink parent

[] purpsicle27 -4 points 3 years ago

Seems to be more of an engineer type question,

I've always wondered this though.

permalink

[] Neato 1 point 3 years ago

A lot of it is simple reflection. Getting your

emitted signal back means there's something

out there. There are measures to prevent

ground reflection, but that can also be a

problem for a plane. IDing your target(anything you can resolve with radar) is

complex. A lot of it is due to knowing who

supposed to be there, any friend-foe systems,

and if you get a good enough signal, resolving

what that reflection looks like. If you get

lucky, that target also emitting a signal for it's

own tracking and it's specifics can give you a

lot of info about what instruments it is using

and for what purpose. And can tell you a

LOT about what it is.

permalink parent

[] aazav 0 points 3 years ago

You do know that you are talking about movies, not

reality, right?

permalink


Often, in movies...

Yup, I got that. But judging by the responses,

it's very real technology.permalink parent

definitely

stabs out own eyes

is

that
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14/14

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