Flight Test Results of an Adaptive Guidance System for Reusable Launch Vehicles

Abstract

To enable autonomous operations in future Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs), reconfigurable control and adaptive guidance will often be required to facilitate recovery of the mission following a major anomalous event such as an effector failure. An adaptive guidance system that works in conjunction with a reconfigurable controller and an autonomous trajectory command reshaping algorithm is presented. The guidance law utilizes a backstepping architecture to generate pitch rate commands that drive the inner-loop control system. Under extreme failure conditions the control surfaces can saturate in an attempt to meet commanded moments. In these cases, the guidance feedback gains are reduced to preserve stability margins in the guidance loops. A case study is presented that shows the benefits of the guidance gain adaptation. Without adjusting the gains, the guidance loops go unstable, whereas stability is maintained with gain reduction.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA421400

Entities

People

  • David G. Ward
  • Jason R. Hull
  • John D. Schierman
  • Neha Gandhi

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Aircrafts
  • Algorithms
  • Case Studies
  • Control Surfaces
  • Control Systems
  • Feedback
  • Fixed Wing Aircraft
  • Flight Paths
  • Guidance
  • Information Systems
  • Launch Vehicles
  • Military Aircraft
  • Reliability
  • Reusable Launch Vehicles
  • Vehicles

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Control Systems Engineering.
  • Missile Defense Systems.
  • Robotics and Automation.