Guidance of Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) Interceptors for Ballistic Missile Defense

Abstract

Nowadays, strategic ballistic missiles pose a significant threat as a technology for many nations
that lack a ballistic missile defense system to protect their homelands and critical national assets
before they reach their intended targets on the earth’s surface. Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV)
interceptors are among the most modern guided weapons designed to defend against incoming
ballistic missiles; they utilize numerous independent re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) through head-on
collisions. The MKV interceptor features a carrier vehicle for monitoring a system and multiple
small kill vehicles, which are used to destroy the MIRV target independently by launching a
single interceptor missile. Therefore, the paper focused on the challenges of ballistic missile
defense and the methodology of MIRV target interception, including the engagement geometry of
interceptor missiles with the target using proportional guidance law, the MKV interceptor-to-
MIRV target engagement strategy, and the numerical estimation of the prediction intercept point
(PIP). The ballistic missile trajectory at different launch angles and engagement simulation of
MKV-to-MIRV after discrimination have been demonstrated to validate the numerical analysis
result. Finally, using the decision tree algorithm, the midcourse discrimination challenge of
ballistic missile defense is verified to identify real warheads from decoys in the threat cloud of
the MIRV target. After identifying real warheads, the Interception of MKV-to-MIRV has been
evaluated at a minimum miss distance to strike real warheads.