Longitudinal control of an aerospace launch vehicle: a backstepping approach

Abstract

A backstepping controller for an aerospace launch vehicle in longitudinal motion is designed and implemented. The control scheme addresses atmospheric flight utilizing experimental setting. The motion is commanded by a pitch program and small perturbation method is used to render the non-linear nature of aerospace launch vehicle into a time-varying linear structure. Real wind gust profile and plant uncertainties are then introduced to the aerospace launch vehicle model. The control system explored, exhibits superior performance in comparison to that of sliding-mode and feedback linearization presented in the literature on the same benchmark. Moreover, the controller is applied to the non-linear platform of the two-stage launch vehicle and the results are compared to those of alternative control approach. Simulations are conducted and advantages of the backstepping controller are highlighted.