Approximate Feedback Linearization of an Air-Breathing Hypersonic Vehicle

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a nonlinear control law for an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle. The model of interest includes flexibility effects and intricate couplings between the engine dynamics and flight dynamics. To overcome the analytical intractability of this model, a nominal control-oriented model is constructed for the purpose of feedback control design. Analysis performed on the nominal model reveals the presence of unstable zero dynamics with respect to the output to be controlled, namely altitude and velocity. By neglecting certain weaker couplings and resorting to dynamic extension at the input side, a simplified nominal model with full vector relative degree with respect to the regulated output is obtained. Standard dynamic inversion can then be applied to the simplified nominal model, and this results in approximate linearization of the nominal model. Finally, a robust outer loop control is designed using LQR with integral augmentation in a model reference scheme. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate that the approximate feedback linearization approach achieves excellent tracking performance on the truth model for two choices of the system output. Finally, a brief case study is presented to qualitatively demonstrate the robustness of the design to parameter variations.