Dynamic pressure based mid-course guidance scheme for hypersonic boost-glide vehicle

Abstract

In this study, a guidance scheme for an aerodynamically controlled hypersonic boost-glide class of flight vehicle is proposed. In this work, optimum glide dynamic pressure corresponding to maximum L/ D throughout the flight is calculated and a mid-course guidance law formulation to track the dynamic pressure while suppressing phugoid oscillations is proposed for real-time flight trajectory shaping. Efficacy of the proposed guidance scheme has been demonstrated through simulation studies. Robustness analysis on the proposed guidance algorithm is carried out using Monte Carlo technique. Lastly, a pattern search algorithm-based offline generated maximum L/ D optimal trajectory existing in literature, which meets minimum dynamic pressure, maximum airframe skin temperature, as well as other in-flight and terminal constraints is used as reference trajectory to evaluate the performance of the proposed guidance scheme.