Guidance in Uncertain Shooting Domain

MBDA is building, together with the best-of-their-class BVRAAM (Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missiles), a comprehensive environment that will allow the pilot to make the best use of their performances. Through the GUSD (Guidance in Uncertain Shooting Domain) algorithms, the whole plane combat system, fully integrated with its missiles, is optimized.

The introduction of Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missiles (BVRAAM) like the MBDA Meteor ramjet-powered missiles will give air superiority to the fighters but also new challenges for the pilots.

With the extended capabilities of the missile, the pilot will face a larger number of situations where he or she will have to make tough decisions about the good time to launch the weapon (depending on the probability for the adversary to be able to avoid the shoot thanks to an escape manoeuver) and about the good time to disengage the plane and break the datalink with the missile (thus leaving it “on its own”) without decreasing the success probability.

Building on its great experience of Air-to-Air fight, on its strong knowledge on uncertainties that affect the result of an air-to-air interception attempt, and on the new possibilities offered by the growing computational power on board planes and missiles, MBDA has designed and is testing new algorithms that provide the pilot with new information (in the Head-Up-Display) about the probability of the interception success, thus allowing him or her to take the right decision at the right time.

Such algorithms have also been designed for the missile itself, so that it can make the best use of the information seen by the plane’s sensors to optimize its own probability of success.

In these new algorithms lies the possibility to greatly enhance the whole combat system composed of the plane and its missiles.