Reference command tracking control for an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle with parametric uncertainties

For the longitudinal model of an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle (AHV) subject to high nonlinearity, uncertain parameters and input constraints, this paper designs a controller for reference command tracking control. Firstly, the feedback linearization method is employed for a modified AHV model with uncertain parameters. Secondly, dynamical effect caused by the uncertain parameters on the linearized model is analyzed, which reveals that the linearized model is affected by disturbance and affine parameter-dependent matrices. Thirdly, a robust controller is designed using H∞ method, which addresses input constraints of the AHV by additional linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Simulations on the nonlinear AHV model demonstrate that the designed controller achieves desired tracking performance with well robustness.