Nonlinear Model Following Control Design for a Hypersonic Waverider Configuration

Abstract

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is currently studying and developing key technologies to implement autonomous hypersonic flight systems into different mission scenarios. One configuration type of higher interest for civil and military purposes is the hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) waverider concept. Such HGVs are operating over highly widespread flight envelopes and are posing complex flight dynamic characteristics. This paper presents a generic hypersonic glide vehicle concept developed by the DLR and proposes a nonlinear flight control architecture that is based on the idea of the nonlinear dynamic inversion and nonlinear model following control methodologies. The proposed control scheme is designed to adequately and robustly handle the system dynamics of the over-actuated vehicle. The approach is first discussed, and the performance of the suggested control laws is later investigated via simulations of a high-fidelity nonlinear flight dynamic model in the nominal case and under the existence of parameter uncertainties and disturbances. The presented results demonstrate that the proposed approach provides significant benefits for the robust control of the hypersonic system