Development of a stealth-enabled supersonic interceptor missile: Design, propulsion, and guidance

This research presents the Horned-Viper project—a technological demonstrator for a stealth-enabled, supersonic homing interceptor missile with multi-domain engagement capability (air-to-air, air-to-ground, and ground-to-ground). Distinguished by a dual-horn inlet blended into the fuselage, Horned-Viper achieves a 45% reduction in frontal RCS compared to canonical designs (e.g., AIM-120C-7, R-73). Its two-stage, dual-pulse solid-propellant architecture delivers a total impulse of 538.6 kN·s while sustaining 10 g maneuvers at Mach 1.5 and achieving a 60 km range from a 6000 m altitude launch—exceeding comparable systems by 20%–30% in agility and thrust management. A refined PNG-based guidance loop, augmented with PID (proportional-integral-derivative)-controlled canards, ensures a 10 Hz closed-loop bandwidth, yielding a 12% shorter time-to-kill relative to AIM-120C-7 under identical intercept conditions. The warhead employs directional spherical fragments, maximizing lethality within a 10 m lethal radius with an optimized fragment mass-to-explosive ratio, surpassing traditional fragmentation yields by 15 %. High-fidelity CFD (ANSYS Fluent) and 6-DOF trajectory simulations validate aerodynamic shaping and flight stability, demonstrating drag coefficient minimization in the Mach 1.8–2.2 regime and lift-to-drag improvements of 25% during terminal maneuvers. Collectively, these quantitative advances—coupled with modular servomotor and warhead innovations—establish Horned-Viper as a promising next-generation interceptor concept with critical performance advantages over X-90, R-73, Sidewinder, and Arrow systems.