Advanced concepts for launch vehicle control

Abstract

Several advanced control concepts for application to the advanced launch system (ALS) design problem are presented. It is shown that these methods attempt to solve the ALS control problem by one of two ways: autopilot design given increased knowledge of the launch vehicle and its environment through greater model fidelity and additional sensor data; and autopilot design in the presence of quantified model/disturbance uncertainties and less stringent sensing requirements. In general, both these solution approaches would require increased computation and memory allocation for control law implementation, while reducing the preflight validation and verification process. Techniques belonging to the first solution approach would also increase sensor and actuator requirements, thereby having a further impact on the avionics system. It is concluded that concepts belonging to the second category would have less overall impact on avionics and, therefore, would be the more viable approach to solving the ALS design problem. >