Agile Missile Autopilot Design using Nonlinear Backstepping Control with Time-Delay Adaptation

Abstract

This paper deals with a nonlinear adaptive autopilot design for agile missile systems. During the agile turn, there exist highly nonlinear, rapidly changing dynamics and aerodynamic uncertainties. To handle these difficulties, we propose a longitudinal autopilot for angle-of-attack tracking based on backstepping control methodology in conjunction with the time-delay adaptation scheme. The performance of the proposed method is investigated through nonlinear 6-DOF simulations using a reference angle-of-attack profile of agile turn that is obtained from trajectory optimization. An intercept scenario is performed to explore the applicability of the proposed control methodology to agile missile systems.