Terminal guidance

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Terminal guidance deals with providing information to a weapon in the final part of its trajectory, or to an aircraft about to land.

Weapons[edit]

Assuming three phases of flight, the terminal phase begins at the end of the midcourse, which, in turn, began at the end of the boost phase. A boost phase may be very short, as for an artillery, or longer, as for a ballistic missile. The midcourse may be extended for a cruise missile, or trivially short for a ballistic weapon from the end of boost to the apogee.

Terminal guidance may be generated by the weapon itself, as with an active radar seeker on an AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile. Alternatively, the guidance system may be semi-active, homing in on radiation reflected from a radar illuminator (e.g., the AN/SPG-62 for a RIM-156 Standard SM-2) or from a laser designator for a laser-guided bomb. Terminal guidance may be passive, as in radar seeking by the BaE Systems ALARM, or by thermal imaging on a GBU-53 Small Diameter Bomb.

Flight[edit]

Aircraft may be guided, on their final approach, by glideslope localizing radio signals or ground-controlled approach radar commands.