Dynamic Characteristic and Control of a Hypersonic Flight Vehicle

Abstract

The longitudinal dynamics of hypersonic flight vehicles present an unstable phugoid mode and a new height mode. Hypersonic flight will be subject to attitude and height divergence that would require stabilizing feedback control. A method of design velocity and altitude tracking controller for hypersonic flight vehicles is outlined in this paper. The nonlinear longitudinal model of hypersonic flight vehicles is trimmed and linearized. With the aid of a full-state observer, the controller is designed follow the LQR method based on the linearized model. The simulation results show that the designed controller can be used for velocity and height tracking control. Index Terms - hypersonic flight vehicle; tracking control; linear quadratic regulator (LQR)