WORST-CASE ANALYSIS OF FLIGHT CONTROL LAWS FOR RE-ENTRY VEHICLES

This paper reports results of a joint study between ESA, DEIMOS Space S.L. and the University of Leicester on the robustness analysis of flight control laws for future hypersonic re-entry vehicles. We apply a novel hybridised version of the deterministic global optimisation algorithm, DIviding RECTangles (DIRECT), to perform worst-case analysis of a nonlinear-dynamic inversion (NDI) flight control law for a highly-detailed simulation model of a hypersonic re-entry vehicle. Nonlinear clearance criteria widely used in the European aerospace industry for the clearance of flight control laws for highly manoeuvrable aircraft are developed and applied in the context of the re-entry vehicle flight control problem. The proposed approach is shown to have the potential to improve significantly both the reliability and efficiency of the flight clearance process for future re-entry vehicles.