Autonomous gliding entry guidance with geographic constraints

This paper presents a novel three-dimensional autonomous entry guidance for relatively high lift-to-drag ratio vehicles satisfying geographic constraints and other path constraints. The guidance is composed of onboard trajectory planning and robust trajectory tracking. For trajectory planning, a longitudinal sub-planner is introduced to generate a feasible drag-versus-energy profile by using the interpolation between upper boundary and lower boundary of entry corridor to get the desired trajectory length. The associated magnitude of the bank angle can be specified by drag profile, while the sign of bank angle is determined by lateral sub-planner. Two-reverse mode is utilized to satisfy waypoint constraints and dynamic heading error corridor is utilized to satisfy no-fly zone constraints. The longitudinal and lateral sub-planners are iteratively employed until all of the path constraints are satisfied. For trajectory tracking, a novel tracking law based on the active disturbance rejection control is introduced. Finally, adaptability tests and Monte Carlo simulations of the entry guidance approach are performed. Results show that the proposed entry guidance approach can adapt to different entry missions and is able to make the vehicle reach the prescribed target point precisely in spite of geographic constraints.