Cost effective V&V for guidance systems using Enhanced Ground Testing (EGT)

Strategic missile systems perform an important role in safe guarding our national security. These systems use inertial guidance systems to navigate and control the missile to its intended target. As military budgets shrink, maintaining schedule and cost for the development and sustainment of these complex systems is paramount. Early prototyping combined with ongoing requirements verification in the system development cycle is critical to reduce schedule and cost risks. Verification and Validation programs must verify requirements and instill confidence that the system will perform as intended with minimal flight testing. The Enhanced Ground Testing (EGT) program was developed at Draper Laboratory to address these risks. EGT tests the guidance system in tactically representative environments as a part of system verification and validation. Multiple test cells are used to simulate the missile environments the guidance system will encounter during flight. For Navy MK6 MOD 1 EGT, these test cells consist of an Aircraft F-15E Pod, Centrifuge, and Dynamic Shaker. The test cells support profiles for environmental thermal, vibration / shock, and linear acceleration and provide test data for reliability and accuracy assessments. An EGT program provides design confidence, enables predictive methods for accuracy and reliability degradation, and is a cost effective way to complement flight test programs.