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Patriot Missile Failure During The Gulf War

Patriot Missile Failure During The Gulf War

University of San Carlos

Cebu City

Alvarez, Ralph Louis A.

Claret, Kim B.
De los Santos, Christine Nicole R.
Te, Chelsea Anne M.
Tuburan, Paula Mae U.
MWF 9:30 10:30

March 2015

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Patriot Missile Failure During The Gulf War
I. Summary
Several wars have already happened, and every time wars boil up, the government and
the military forces of those involved always develop new weaponry to add to their arsenal in
order to increase their force and their chances of winning. Wars happen on land, water and
airborne, and most of the time, those who are stronger in the air, tend to win. So, they started to
develop weapons that take down incoming enemy aircrafts, and one of the most successful of
these is the patriot missile.
Developed by the company Raytheon, a Patriot (Phased Array Tracking Intercept of
Target) missile is a long ranged surface-to-air (SAM) air defense system, which serves as
defense from incoming aerial attacks. The Patriot system was originally designed to terminate
aircrafts and cruise missiles which travels only at speeds up to MACH 2 (1500 mph). It was also
made mobile throughout the years to avoid detection from enemy forces.
A disaster occurred during the Gulf War in the early 1990s that caused the death of 28
American soldiers and injuries to 98 other people. It happened on the night of the February 25,
1991, when one of the Patriot missiles was not able to fulfill its purpose during Operation Desert
Shield, which is to intercept incoming Iraqi Scuds which travels at speed up to MACH 5 (3750
mph). The Scud had successfully hit the U.S. Army barracks near Dhahran when the Patriot
missile failed to detect the incoming Scud which was due to a defect in the Patriot missile
defense system.
II. Discussion
As stated in the last paragraph of the summary, the disaster occurred on the night of
February 25 of 1991 when one of the Patriot missiles was unable to intercept one Iraqi Scud
aimed at the barracks of the U.S. Army barracks located near Dhahran. The inability of the
Patriot missile to intercept the Scud was caused by a defect on its defense system, specifically
on its systems internal clock.
Apparently, the Patriots algorithm in determining whether a flying object approaching is
a Scud or not is, first, is it scans the object if it might be a Scud using 3-D radar sweep data.
Second, is that it calculates the next position of the Scud at a specific time using the data
gathered for the speed a Scud to determine if it truly is. Next, the Patriots 3-D radar sweep data
again scans the most probable location of the Scud in a specific time in the future. If the object
passes through the predicted location, it is identified as a Scud and the Patriot engages and fire
missiles towards the Scud.
Time, on the Patriot missiles computer, was multiplied by 1/10 of a second. This
calculation was programmed on a 24-bit fixed point register for whole numbers in binary and
another 24-bit register for fractions in binary form. But since the value 1/10 of a second has a
non-terminating binary equivalent, which was bound to lead to some possible errors when it is
ran for a lengthy amount of time. The variables that are necessary in calculating the Scuds
position are velocity and time of the last radar detection, which uses the time recorded on the
Patriots system clock, which means the greater the run time, the greater the miscalculation.

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Patriot Missile Failure During The Gulf War
The
error
in
the
Patriots
system
clock
is
calculated
as
1/24+1/25+1/28+1/29+1/212+1/213+.... Now the 24 bit register in the Patriot stored instead
0.00011001100110011001100 introducing an error of 0.0000000000000000000000011001100...
in binary, or about 0.000000095 in decimal. Multiplying by the number of tenths of a second in
100 hours gives 0.000000095100606010=0.34.) The following table displays a simple
illustration of its inaccuracy at certain points of time.

Hours

Seconds

Calculated Time (sec)

3600

Approx. shift in
Range Gate
(meters)

Inaccuracy
(sec)

3599.9966

.0034

28800

28799.9725

.0275

55

20

72000

71999.9313

.0687

137

48

172800

172799.8352

.1648

330

72

259200

259199.7528

.2472

494

100

360000

359999.6667

.3333

687

Taken from Appendix A of http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/it/~alum/patriot_bug.html (slightly edited)

On February 11 of 1991, Israeli soldiers reported to the U.S. Army that the Patriot
missiles had a 20 percent shift in its range gate, which is the electronic detection device within
the radar system of the Patriot, after a continuous operation for 8 hours. This had a great effect
on the Patriot because in order for it to accurately pinpoint the next location of a Scud, it has to
be in the center of the range gate set by the Patriots radar tracking system.
On the night of the incident, the Alpha battery had been in operation for continuous 100
hours, and the resulting inaccuracy of the Patriot missile, as displayed on the table above, of
0.3333 second, which would mean that the calculation of the Patriot had a great impact in its

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Patriot Missile Failure During The Gulf War
tracking device. A system patch has been programmed to fix the problem but it arrived on
February 26, which was already a day late.

Conclusion
The patriot missile is a weapon designed to take down any incoming missile that may be
no more three to six meters long and is typically flying at three to five times at the speed of
sound. This weapon has been deployed in many situations because of its ability to shoot down
enemy missiles and protect the soldiers and the civilians from an attack, but the disaster that
happened during the Gulf War is an exemption.
The cause of the disaster can be tracked down to a bug in the Patriots radar and the
system software that is responsible for the tracking calculations of the incoming missile. The
bug happened during the calculation of the next location of the incoming target. The prediction
on how they determine the next location of the target is calculated based on the targets speed
and the time of the last detection on the radar.
In the system, speed is stored as a whole number and a decimal, and time is a whole
number measured in tenths of a second. The algorithm used to predict the next location to scan
by the radar requires that both speed and time be expressed as real numbers but the system
only has 24 bit fixed-point registers. Because time was measured as the number of tenthseconds which has a non-terminating binary expansion, was chopped at 24 bits after the radix
point. The error in precision grows as the value of time increases, and the inaccuracy resulting
from this is directly proportional to the targets speed.
This disaster can be a lesson to all engineers. Though they are not capable of designing
a system that can work perfectly under every conceivable use case, but they can make a
system that has its own limits of operation and fails in some ways, when it operates outside of
its limits.

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Patriot Missile Failure During The Gulf War

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Patriot Missile Failure During The Gulf War

In this flowchart, it displays a series of executable solutions that can aid in

solving the Patriot Missiles inaccuracy due to the incompatibility of its
system clock programming and tracking device.