[119069] in Cypherpunks
Re: Thieves steal six ballistic missiles in Poland
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John A. Limpert)
Thu Oct 14 03:10:09 1999
Message-ID: <38057D34.B45E5E44@radix.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 02:50:31 -0400
From: "John A. Limpert" <johnl@radix.net>
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To: Sean Roach <roach_s@mail.intplsrv.net>
CC: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
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Reply-To: "John A. Limpert" <johnl@radix.net>
Sean Roach wrote:
> And I always thought all it would take would be a piece of PVC pipe
> for the body, a trip to an RC model store for the actuators, maybe a
> few BASIC stamps, and then the payload itself. Making the propellent
> shouldn't be any harder than preparing the explosive. Sensors
> wouldn't have to be complicated, the first guided missiles probably
> didn't have anything more complex than what is found in consumer
> electonics on the low end now.
The navigation, guidance and control system is not going to be easy to
build. A minimal system, like that used on "artillery rockets", needs
gyroscopes to sense attitude. The control actuators need to have power
and a fast response time. A DSP chip should be fast enough to run the
guidance software. The guidance software should run at a high cyclic
rate, say between 100 Hz and 1000 Hz. The tricky part is coming up with
control law equations for the guidance software. I would start with a
good book on control theory.
