An analysis of on-line autonomous robust tracking controller based on variable structure control is presented for an aerospace launch vehicle. Decentralized sliding-mode controller is designed to achieve the decoupled asymptotic tracking of guidance commands upon plant uncertainties and external disturbances. Development and application of the controller for an aerospace launch vehicle during a...

This paper presents an application of the nonlinear optimal control techniques to the design of launch vehicle autopilots. The optimal control is given by the solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation, which in this case cannot be solved explicity. A method based upon Successive Galerkin Approximation (SGA), is used to obtain an approximate optimal solution. Simulation results invo...

Atmospheric flight phase of a launch vehicle is utilized to evaluate the performance of an H∞ controller in the presence of disturbances. Dynamics of the vehicle is linearly modeled using time-varying parameters. An operating point was found to design a robust command tracker using H∞ control theory that guarantees a stable maneuver. At the end, the controller was employed on the launch vehicle...

Intelligent Launch and Range Operations Virtual Test Bed (ILRO-VTB) is a real-time web-based command and control, communication, and intelligent simulation environment of ground-vehicie, iaunch and range operation activities. ILRO-VTB consists of a variety of simulation models combined with commercia! and indigenous sofGare devehpments (XASA AmeSj. It creates a hybrid softwarelhardware environm...