Explore the vast range of titles available.

Written by an expert with more than 30 years of experience, Guidance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles contains new analytical results, taken from the author's research, that can be used for analysis and design of unmanned aerial vehicles guidance and control systems. This book progresses from a clear elucidation of guidance laws and unmanned aerial vehicle dynamics to the modeling of their guidance and control systems. The author provides an innovative presentation of the theoretical aspects of unmanned aerial vehicles' guidance that cannot be found in any other book. It presents new ideas that, once crystallized, can be implemented in the new generation of unmanned aerial systems.

Health care is among the most important issues for Americans since the U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world. Public spending, including governmental spending, social health insurance, and compulsory private insurance constitutes the largest source of health care spending. The U.S. spends on health care nearly twice as much as the average country of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Politicians like to talk about health care of equal quality for all population. Unfortunately, this had never been in the past, and it is unrealistically to expect in the future. Now rich persons, members of the U.S. Congress, and federal government employees have better health insurance than many retirees. Not all doctors accept patients with Medicare or Medicate, since these insurances are not good sources of revenue. For the same reason, old Americans should wait at least a week for officebased medical appointments. That is why the described above possible way to improve the existing health care system can be efficient. Many people, especially young, do not need the highest quality physicians to treat them, and they can wait a week to get appointment. If the country has 8.8 percent of people without health insurance coverage and the insurance prices are high, the compromised approach is more realistic that empty proposals of politicians. The country with the 27 trillion national debt, which exceeds it’s GDP, and with spending on health care almost 18 percent of its GDP cannot spend on health care more. The United States economic health does not allow doing that.

A rigorously justifiable procedure to calculate a group multiple based on multiples of separate members of the group does not exist. Academicians and practitioners use the arithmetic mean, harmonic mean, and median to calculate valuation multiples for various industries and sectors of the economy. This article offers a criterial interpretation of the arithmetic and harmonic means and considers the group multiple problem as decision making based on the criterial approach.

In the classical mean-variance finance model where investors have a relative preference for risk versus return, the authors add a new factor – the average trading volume of shares of the portfolio’s security for a specified period of time measured as a percentage of its total float number of shares – that is used to quantify the portfolio’s components based on their potential price increase. The introduced trading volume factor cannot be incorporated into the classic model by increasing the portfolio’s expected return because the price and volume correlation is weak. The modified mean-variance optimization model shows that Markowitz’s portfolio can be improved. The generalized optimal portfolio problem is formulated as a multicriteria problem. The given examples demonstrate that the offered model can be used successfully in practice.

The considered guidance laws were developed without taking into consideration a real missile acceleration ability. The commanded acceleration is a command to the missile guidance and control system to realize the prescribed acceleration. However, the missile inability to perform these commands would demonstrate practical inef–ciency of the chosen guidance law. That is why the implementation of the guidance laws should be accompanied with simulation that helps to choose proper guidance law parameters. Acceleration limits depend on types of interceptors and technology invested in their production. These limits should be taken into consideration on all stages of missile design.

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the United States currently possesses –ve major UAVs: the Air Force’s Predator and Global Hawk, the Navy and Marine Corps’s Pioneer, and the Army’s Hunter and Shadow.Predator is a medium-altitude (7.6 km), long-endurance (24 hours), 8.23 m long UAV that typically operates at a 3-4.5 km altitude to get the best imagery from its video cameras, although it has the ability to reach a maximum altitude of 7.6 km. It launches and lands like a regular aircraft, but is controlled by a pilot on the ground using a joystick. The vehicle’s operational radius is about 740 km and airspeed up to 400 km/h. The Predator’s primary function is airborne reconnaissance and target acquisition. To accomplish this mission, the Predator is out–tted with a 200 kg surveillance payload, which includes two electro-optical (E-O) cameras and one infrared (IR) camera for use at night. It also includes synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which allows the UAV to operate in severe weather conditions. The Predator’s satellite communications provide for beyond line-of-sight (LOS) operations. The Predator’s primary satellite link consists of a 6.1 meter satellite dish and associated support equipment. The satellite link provides communications between the ground station and the aircraft when it is beyond the line-of-sight and is a link to networks that disseminate secondary intelligence. In 2002, the Predator’s military designation was changed from RQ-1B (reconnaissance unmanned) to the MQ-1 (multimission unmanned) due to its added capabilities of laser designation and missile –ring. New types of Predators have a multispectral targeting system that will add a laser designator to the E-O/IR payload. The socalled B variant, also referred to as the “hunter-killer,” is a larger version of the Predator (length 10.97 m) with improvements in altitude, payload, speed, and range. The MQ-9 can œy at altitudes of 13.5-16 km, and carry eight Hell–re missiles (compared to two for the MQ-1).

The development of new aerial vehicle systems starts from the formulation of their operational requirements. An operational requirement presents a document, which describes the tactical need for the vehicle system and the area of its use. The operational requirements are then translated into performance speci–cations, which are given to contractors. In the case of a vehicle guidance system, the performance speci–cations may de–ne the speci–c type of guidance to be employed. The tactical problem is the basis for the operational requirement and tactical considerations are the overriding considerations in all stages of the design of a vehicle guidance system.

Any simulation focuses on achieving certain goals-to check the validity of some ideas, to make a preliminary estimate of design ef–ciency, and so on. Each simulation model deals with a certain scenario. For missiles, the presence of a target, its parameters and trajectory, is a necessary part of the model, and the intercept accuracy is one of the most important parameters determined by simulation. For UAVs, the model should test how precise the vehicle follows the prescribed œight path presented by a sequence of waypoints.