Roll-pitch-yaw integrated mu-synthesis for high angle-of-attack missiles

Abstract

In this research, we explore the feasibility of a roll-pitch-yaw integrated autopilot for a high angle-of-attack missile. Investigation of the aerodynamic characteristics of a surface-to-air missile is presented, which reveals the strong effects of aerodynamic cross-coupling between the longitudinal and lateral dynamics. Robust control techniques based on H-infinity and mu-synthesis are employed to design roll-pitch-yaw integrated autopilots. The performance of the proposed roll-pitch-yaw integrated controller is tested in nonlinear simulation accounting for cross-coupling effects between the lateral and longitudinal channels. In comparison of H-infinity and mu controllers, the performance of mu controller is slightly better in terms of rising time and settling time of the response. Using mu analysis, we identified the suitable structure and magnitude of the uncertainty block representing the nonlinear perturbations and cross coupling in the missile dynamics. The level of robustness obtained cannot be achieved by a controlled designed in a decoupled manner. (C) 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.