Review of the characteristic model-based hypersonic flight vehicles adaptive control

MENG Bin

doi:10.7641/CTA.2014.40910

Abstract：Tsien Hsue-shen proposed the terminology hypersonic in the paper“similarity laws of hypersonic flow”for the first time in 1945. Hypersonic flight vehicles have strong military and civil application prospects, where the control of hypersonic flight vehicles is one of the key science and technology problems. The researches of hypersonic flight vehicles have made great progresses; while there have been great difficulties in the test of them, for example, X–51A and HTV–2. This phenomenon has to trigger us to think profoundly. The restriction of the research of aerodynamics results in the current dynamic models with significant uncertainties of structure and parameters compared with the true vehicles, which restricts fundamentally the research of its control theory and approach. And the complexity of the hypersonic dynamics results in the complication of the control method in engineering. Hence, for the hypersonic flight vehicle control problem, we need to the study the interdisciplinary of aerodynamics and control and the adaptive control apt to the engineering. For the above problems, we have done some researches. A three axes coupling hypersonic flight vehicle model analogy X–20 and its aerodynamic model were constructed. Combining the engineering, the control was research according to the table type of aerodynamic data. The characteristic model has the important advantages with strong coupling and without analytic dynamic equation. In recent years, characteristic model-based control of hypersonic climbing, gliding and reentry have been researched. In this paper, we shall first introduce the characteristic theory. This review of the characteristic model-based control of hypersonic flight vehicles is followed. Finally, conclusions and future work are summarized.