Adaptive optimal control for an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of optimal control for the longitudinal model of a generic air-breathing hypersonic vehicle (AHV). Existing works about the optimal control of AHV usually require the complete knowledge of the system dynamics. However, for realistic control systems, the dynamics may often be unknown or partially unknown, which makes it more difficult to handle the optimal controller design of the AHV. To overcome this difficulty, we propose an adaptive optimal controller synthesis algorithm, where the algebraic Riccati equation (ARE) is solved online without requiring the internal dynamics of AHV. Control inputs for the AHV include the elevator deflection and the throttle setting. The simulation results on the AHV demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.