Controlling a launch vehicle at exoatmospheric flight conditions via adaptive control allocation

Date
2020
Editor(s)
Advisor
Supervisor
Co-Advisor
Co-Supervisor
Instructor
Source Title
Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Print ISSN
1300-0632
Electronic ISSN
Publisher
Turkiye Klinikleri
Volume
28
Issue
4
Pages
2278 - 2287
Language
English
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Series
Abstract

The focus of this paper is the control of a reusable launch vehicle at exoatmospheric flight conditions, in the presence of actuator effectiveness uncertainty. Since during exoatmospheric flight, dynamic pressure is nonexistent, aerodynamic control surfaces cannot be used. Under these conditions, reaction control jet actuators can provide the necessary thrust to control the vehicle. Reaction control jets have only 2 states, namely, on and off, and continuous control inputs can be implemented with the help of pulse width modulation, which is also employed in this paper. A continuous controller is designed in the outer loop and a control allocator is used to distribute the total control input among redundant actuators, whose effectiveness are assumed to be unknown. The unknown actuator effectiveness is addressed with the help of an adaptive control allocator. A representative model of a reusable launch vehicle equipped with reaction control jets is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the overall control scheme.

Course
Other identifiers
Book Title
Citation
Published Version (Please cite this version)