Fast local representation of gravity anomaly along flight trajectory

Abstract

A local representation of gravity anomaly along flight trajectory ballistic missile based on the net function approximation theory and an “infundibular tunnel” generated warping a standard trajectory is proposed. Even trading exactness against computational burden, the results achieved by the proposed method have sufficient precision for trajectory calculation. Being compared with 1080-order spherical harmonics, it takes just about one-thirtieth onboard computational time and needs only about 1000 data memorized to complete the gravity anomaly computation for a 12,000 km range trajectory, with an average approximation error of about 10⁻² mgal and a consequent ballistic impact error beneath 8 m. The modest memory requirement and vastly decreased computational time allow this method to apply to onboard computations of gravity anomaly along any trajectory.

Keywords

Gravity anomaly local representation fast trajectory calculation infundibular tunnel net function

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