Ballistic error propagation algorithm for glide trajectory based on perturbation theory

Abstract

A ballistic error propagation algorithm for glide trajectories of a hypersonic glide vehicle is originally proposed based on the perturbation theory. Perturbation equations that treat perturbations as external inputs and flight state deviations as state variables are established. Based on the reasonable simplification assumptions, the analytic expression of the state transition matrix is deduced and thus the ballistic error propagation model is established. A transposed coordinate frame is introduced to simplify the development of the perturbation equations and the error propagation model. By employing the gravity anomaly as the single perturbation factor, the proposed algorithm is validated and verified by numerical experiments. When compared with the traditional method, the proposed method takes only just a quarter computational costs and restrains the method errors beneath 10% of the total terminal deviations. It is an effort that initially focuses on the error propagation mechanism of the glide trajectory and the proposed model has sufficient precision for the analysis of modeling deviations, thus laying the foundation of correcting the modeling deviations and enhancing the accuracy of vehicle’s flight states.