A Probabilistic Approach to the Conceptual Design of a Ship-Launched High Speed Standoff Missile

Abstract

This paper focuses on the application of advanced design methodologies developed by Georgia Tech's Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL) to the conceptual design of a hypersonic air-breathing ship-to-surface cruise missile. This approach uses an integrated, parametric environment, that brings more physics based knowledge into early phases of design, thus allowing the designer to have a thorough understanding of the entire design space. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and probabilistic methods allow the designer to then generate a field of designs, instead of just one point design. A High Speed Standoff Missile (HSSM) was required to deliver a 250-lb warhead to time critical targets with a stationary dwell time between five and fifteen minutes, at a range of up to 1,500 km. The primary drivers for a successful design were shown to be minimum time to target, affordability, and compatibility with the Vertical Launch System (VLS) currently used on many of the United States Navy's cruisers and destroyers. Included is an explanation of the physics based tools used to perform the various disciplinary analyses, and their use to construct metamodels allowing for design space exploration and robust design simulation, as well as a quantification of the uncertainty in the design parameters.