There are two hypersonic Brahmos designs.
One is an enhanced ramjet which will take the missile to mach 5.5. The second is this UCAV version which will be anywhere between mach 9 and mach 13.
So we will be seeing the enhanced ramjet version being tested first, possibly before 2020. The scramjet version, you can expect its first flight only after 2025.
Hi
@randomradio
I must confess I am not an expert in propulsion, whatever information I get is from my friends in DRDL or NCCRD(IITM). They(DRDL) have been facing challenges in terms of sustaining the combustion for any meaningful duration of time in scramjet engine. Brahmos Co in India literally has no research propgrams in scramjet.
And "practically" speaking I dont think we can fly a brahmos with "our own scramjet" anytime in next 4-5 years. It'll take at least half a decade for india to even test flight such a missile let alone induction into forces. There are a host of other issues that needs to be tackled some of them are-
1) Structural challenges--those pertaining to aero-structures that can sustain the aerodynamic heating .
2) Control challenges associated with controlling a missile in hypersonic regime. Even US has perfected it just now like maybe 5-8 years back,so no way can india do that in time frame you've envisaged above.
Since I am a control engineer myself,I can tell you a dozen of reasons why this is difficult,to put things into perspective--
(a) To implement any kind of control(whether linearized or nonlinear control) we need to have all the states available either measured/filtered or observed(estimated).
(b) It is very difficult to get an accurate air data reading in hypersonic regime from pitots--like how you do in case of any other aircraft.
(c) Angle of attack,side slip angles can not be measured accurately as well.
(d) It is because of #b and #c that you need to devise a mathematical framework known as estimation of states(or observer design).
(e) Since a lot of parameters in hypersonic flight are simply un-known and differential equations being nonlinear, it is advisable to use something like sliding mode control with adaptation law(popularly known as Adaptive sliding mode control) for controller formulation and a adaptive sliding mode for observer design as well(since velocity of the hypersonic vehicle cant be accurately measured). If we are little courageous then we can even use neural network based reinforcement learning-- if we are willing to let the system have couple of failures as well..lol! The convergence rate in adaptation laws is what makes the distinction between falling from skies and hitting the target.
The above mentioned mathematical formulation is much more complex than either proportional nav used in other tactical missiles or MRAC(model reference adaptive controller) used in modern digital FBWs.