What is a Missile Fin Actuator?
When a missile is launched, its trajectory and journey to its intended target is guided via the control fins located on the body of the weapon. An intelligent rotary missile fin actuator positions each fin according to the instructions received from the onboard processor. It uses accurate positional closed loop feedback to confirm position or adjust the fins and direct the missile accordingly.
The stresses involved in guiding a missile require fin control actuation systems that possess significant power and positional accuracy. In this way they are able to guide the weapon accurately ensuring precise delivery while maintaining levels of reliability and safety that are paramount in military applications.
Why is our Missile Fin Actuator different?
OTM has a wealth of experience in designing and building intelligent actuator solutions for Aerospace and Defence. This has kept us at the cutting edge of the technological requirements needed to succeed. It is borne out by our history of solving problems where our competitors tried and failed. A South American manufacturer tried unsuccessfully for three years to find a missile fin actuator system. It was needed to control their high performance, next generation missile. OTM came up with a successful missile fin control system.
OTM possesses significant design and engineering expertise in-house that has enabled us to build more power and greater accuracy into smaller, lighter actuator units. These are essential components in missile fin control actuation. In most instances, missile fin actuators once installed cannot be tested. They therefore must be built to uncompromising levels of reliability.
Our Innovation Lab is set up specifically to enable creative thinking to solving
challenging problems. This is particularly pertinent where space and weight are an absolute premium. Our units are designed to be plug and play. This means we can take the technology already applied to previous intelligent actuator applications and adapt them easily to new, but similar situations. This drastically reduces development time for new projects.
The benefits of our actuator solutions
High Positional Accuracy
Reduced Cost
Short Configuration Cycle
Rapid Prototype Capability
ITAR-free
How we design and build our Missile Fin Actuator
At OTM we have devoted a significant number of brain hours to figuring out how best to initiate and control the accurate and reliable actuation of missile fins. We have honed our design and build process through decades of learning. In particular, how best to solve the toughest problems in defence and aerospace.
When we approach the missile fin control problem-solving process, we first define exactly what the problem is to be solved. At this point we can then conclude on what the successful solution would look like. The OTM design process is a collaborative one where our designers and engineers look for possible solutions in a constraint-free environment where all reasonable options can be considered. The pool of knowledge and experience within our Innovation Lab enables us to carry out full analysis and comparison with evidence-based assessment on likely success.
From there we can draw on the conclusions and our expertise to select the best solution. We then implement it using our tried and tested methodology. Once proto-typed we put the chosen actuator solution through a rigorous testing process. This ensures that the theory matches the practice.
Some other Missile projects we've worked on........
Starstreak
Skyflash
Red Top
Exocet