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An optically guided mortar comprising a three axis canard assembly, an optical seeker, a guidance and control processor, and a fuze mechanism. The optical seeker is a direct replacement for existing standard mortar fuzes. The resulting system significantly improves current mortar circular error prob

An optically guided mortar comprising a three axis canard assembly, an optical seeker, a guidance and control processor, and a fuze mechanism. The optical seeker is a direct replacement for existing standard mortar fuzes. The resulting system significantly improves current mortar circular error probability (CEP) and results in overall reduction of cost of target prosecution, reduction in collateral damage, improved crew survivability, and adds compatibility against limited non-stationary targets. The optical seeker detects an optical illuminator located at a target and supplies signals to the guidance and control processor which through a guidance algorithm supplies steering commands to drive motors of the three axis canard assembly which move a plurality of guidance canards to accurately direct the munition toward a target.

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What is claimed is: 1. An optically guided ballistic shell comprising: a casing adapted to contain an explosive charge; a guidance and control system located in a fore portion of the casing, said guidance and control system including: an optical seeker for detecting an optical illuminator located a

What is claimed is: 1. An optically guided ballistic shell comprising: a casing adapted to contain an explosive charge; a guidance and control system located in a fore portion of the casing, said guidance and control system including: an optical seeker for detecting an optical illuminator located at a target; a processor for generating steering commands based upon sight information received by the optical seeker; and a canard assembly for changing the flight path of the shell from its ballistic flight path based upon the steering commands received from the processor. 2. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 including a fuze mechanism for detonating the shell at the target; and a safe/arm mechanism to prevent the fuze mechanism from detonating an errant shell. 3. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 2 including an air turbine for controlling the safe/arm mechanism. 4. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 including a self contained power source for powering the processor and canard assembly. 5. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 wherein the processor includes a plurality of gyros to sense gravity induced overturning moment to provide data for roll angle estimation and down determination. 6. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 wherein the processor includes a Proportional-Integral-Derivative control loop having at least three rate sensor gyros to sense the pitch, rate and yaw of the shell. 7. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 wherein the processor includes an algorithm to determine roll and target error and provide the steering commands to the canard assembly. 8. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 wherein the canard assembly includes four canards, two of which are each independently controlled and two others being dependently controlled to provide a three-axis control assembly. 9. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 wherein the processor includes a seeker detection algorithm which generates the steering commands for the canard assembly based upon signals received from a roll control loop and a controller which compares nominal bore sight angle to a measured bore sight angle. 10. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 wherein a validation code is contained in the processor for comparison to a code contained in signals received from the optical illuminator. 11. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 10 including a manually actuated device for setting the validation code in the processor. 12. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 1 wherein the optical seeker includes seeker optics for detecting the optical illuminator at the target and a detector array for generating target error which is supplied to the processor. 13. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 12 wherein the optical seeker uses a non-uniform pixel array and looks off bore sight for determining target error which is supplied to the processor. 14. The optically guided ballistic shell defined in claim 13 wherein the processor makes range corrections to the ballistic descent path of the shell by comparing nominal bore sight angle to the measured bore sight angle as a function of time. 15. A replacement fuze assembly for mounting on a forward end of a shell body for an optically guided ballistic shell, said fuze assembly including: an optical seeker for detecting an optical illuminator located at a target; a guidance and control processor for generating steering commands based upon sight information received by the optical seeker; a canard assembly for changing the flight path of the ballistic shell from its ballistic flight path based upon the steering commands received from the guidance and control processor; and a fuze mechanism for detonating the ballistic shell at the target. 16. The fuze assembly defined in claim 15 wherein the optical seeker includes seeker optics for detecting the optical illuminator at the target and a detector array for generating target error which is supplied to the processor. 17. The fuze assembly defined in claim 16 wherein the optical seeker incorporates non-imaging optics and a course pixel sensor. 18. The fuze assembly defined in claim 15 including a safe/arm assembly, a ram air turbine for actuating the safe/arm assembly, a booster pellet and a battery. 19. The fuze assembly defined in claim 15 wherein the canard assembly includes four canards, two of which are each independently controlled and two others being dependently controlled to provide a three-axis control assembly. 20. The fuze assembly defined in claim 15 wherein the guidance and control processor includes a processor subsystem which has a seeker detection algorithm which generates the steering commands for the canard assembly.