An Analysis of Target Location Error Generated by the Litening Pod as Integrated on the AV-8B Harrier II

The modern battlefield continues to rapidly change requiring a quick, reactive, and precise strike capability by air forces. The Litening Pod (Tpod), as integrated on the AV-8B Harrier, can now be easily used by the pilot as a target coordinate generation source for global positioning system (GPS) guided weapons. This thesis has attempted to mathematically determine the target coordinate generation accuracy of the Tpod. The total mathematical target location error (TLE) was then compared to actual flight test data.

The analytical approach to calculating the accuracy of Tpod generated target coordinates has shown to be too conservative. This is due to no consideration being given to the possibility that errors are not necessarily additive in nature but instead will most likely cancel to some extent and also that performance of the Tpod is better than specified. Because of this, the analytical approach shows the Tpod coordinate generation capability is not good enough to meet the joint direct attack munitions (JDAM) specification at reasonable standoff ranges.

Actual flight test data shows the Tpod is able to meet the specification threshold for JDAM TLE inside 6 nautical miles (nm) slant range. The number one recommendation for minimizing the TLE for Tpod generated target coordinates is to fix the aircraft software to properly set the relative bit for Tpod targeting.