Coning motion stability of spinning missiles with strapdown seekers

This paper investigates the problem of coning motion stability of spinning missiles equipped with strapdown seekers. During model derivation, it is found that the scaling factor error between the strapdown seeker and the onboard gyro introduces an undesired parasitic loop in the guidance system and, therefore, results in stability issues. Through stability analysis, a sufficient and necessary condition for the stability of spinning missiles with strapdown seekers is proposed analytically. Theoretical and numerical results reveal that the scaling factor error, spinning rate and navigation ratio play important roles in stable regions of the guidance system. Consequently, autopilot gains must be checked carefully to satisfy the stability conditions.