This open access book highlights the autonomous and intelligent flight control of future launch vehicles for improving flight autonomy to plan ascent and descent trajectories onboard, and autonomously handle unexpected events or failures during the flight.
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, space launch activities worldwide have grown vigorously. Meanwhile, commercial launches also account for the booming trend. Unfortunately, the risk of space launches still exists and is gradually increasing in line with the rapidly rising launch activities and commercial rockets. In the history of space launches, propulsion and control systems are the two main contributors to launch failures. With the development of information technologies, the increase of the functional density of hardware products, the application of redundant or fault-tolerant solutions, and the improvement of the testability of avionics, the launch losses caused by control systems exhibit a downward trend, and the failures induced by propulsion systems become the focus of attention. Under these failures, the autonomous planning and guidance control may save the missions.
This book focuses on the latest progress of relevant projects and academic studies of autonomous guidance, especially on some advanced methods which can be potentially real-time implemented in the future control system of launch vehicles. In Chapter 1, the prospect and technical challenges are summarized by reviewing the development of launch vehicles. Chapters 2 to 4 mainly focus on the flight in the ascent phase, in which the autonomous guidance is mainly reflected in the online planning. Chapters 5 and 6 mainly discuss the powered descent guidance technologies. Finally, since aerodynamic uncertainties exert a significant impact on the performance of the ascent / landing guidance control systems, the estimation of aerodynamic parameters, which are helpful to improve flight autonomy, is discussed in Chapter 7.
The book serves as a valuable reference for researchers and engineers working on launch vehicles. It is also a timely source of information for graduate students interested in the subject.
Author(s): Zhengyu Song, Dangjun Zhao, Stephan Theil
Series: Springer Series in Astrophysics and Cosmology
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 228
City: Singapore
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Contents
1 Review, Prospect and Technical Challenge of Launch Vehicle
1.1 Review on Development of Launch Vehicle
1.1.1 Initial Development Stage (1950–1970s)
1.1.2 Space Shuttle Stage (1970–1990s)
1.1.3 Commercial Service Stage (1990–2010s)
1.1.4 Comprehensive Performance Improvement Stage (2010s–Now)
1.2 Development Prospect of Launch Vehicle
1.3 Current Development Status of Launch Vehicle Reusable Technology
1.3.1 Reusable Space Transportation System in Axisymmetric Configuration
1.3.2 Reusable Space Transportation System in Lifting-body Configuration
1.4 Development Status of Launch Vehicle Intelligent Autonomous Technology
1.4.1 Propulsion System Fault Identification and Mission Reconstruction
1.4.2 Fault Identification and Control Reconfiguration of Actuator
1.4.3 Autonomous Control Technology
1.5 Future Development Technical Challenge of Reusable and Intelligent Autonomous Technologies
1.5.1 Technical Challenge of Reusable Technology
1.5.2 Technical Challenge of Intelligent Autonomous Technology
1.6 Conclusions
References
2 Autonomous Guidance Control for Ascent Flight
2.1 Introduction
2.1.1 Traditional Guidance Methods
2.1.2 Autonomous Guidance Methods
2.1.3 Summary
2.2 Motion Models of Launchers
2.2.1 Motion Models
2.2.2 Constraints and Objectives
2.3 Exo-Atmospheric Analytical Guidance Methods
2.3.1 Basic Closed-Loop Guidance Method for Long March Launch Vehicles (LMLVs)
2.3.2 Evolutions of the Closed-Loop Guidance Methods
2.3.3 Prediction-Correction Iterative Guidance Method
2.4 Joint Optimization of Target Orbit and Flight Path
2.4.1 State-Triggered-Indices (STI) Based Method for Continuous Powered Phases
2.4.2 Segmented Rescue Optimization Crossing Coasting Phase
2.4.3 Multiple Graded Optimization
2.5 Conclusions
References
3 Ascent Predictive Guidance for Thrust Drop Fault of Launch Vehicles Using Improved GS-MPSP
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Generic Theory of the IGS-MPSP Method
3.2.1 The Sensitivity Relation for Free-Terminal Time Continuous System
3.2.2 The Mathematical of IGS-MPSP Method
3.2.3 The Computation of Sensitive Matrix by Gauss Quadrature Collocation
3.2.4 The Implementation Step of IGS-MPSP
3.3 The Ascent Predictive Guidance Under Thrust Drop Fault
3.3.1 Problem Formulation
3.3.2 Terminal Constraints
3.3.3 Solved by the IGS-MPSP
3.4 Numerical Results
3.4.1 The Results by the Proposed Method
3.4.2 Comparison with SOCP Method
3.5 Conclusion
References
4 Birkhoff Pseudospectral Method and Convex Programming for Trajectory Optimization
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Preliminaries of Convex Programming and PS Method for Optimal Control
4.2.1 Convex Programming Method for OCP
4.2.2 PS Method for Convex Optimal Control Problem
4.3 Well-Conditioned Second-Order Birkhoff PS Method
4.3.1 Birkhoff Interpolation at GL Points
4.3.2 Preconditioned Birkhoff PS Method
4.3.3 Birkhoff PS Method for Convex Optimal Control
4.4 Application Examples
4.4.1 Simple Cart Problem
4.4.2 Rescue Orbit Searching Problem
4.5 Conclusions
References
5 Autonomous Descent Guidance via Sequential Pseudospectral Convex Programming
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Mission and Vehicle
5.2.1 Vehicle and Mission Overview
5.2.2 Rocket Modeling
5.3 Problem Formulation
5.4 Convex Formulation
5.5 Sequential Pseudospectral Convex Programming
5.5.1 Discretization
5.5.2 Dynamics
5.5.3 Boundary Conditions
5.5.4 Linking Conditions
5.5.5 Cost
5.5.6 Constraints—Powered Landing
5.5.7 Initialization
5.5.8 Convergence Criterion
5.6 Numerical Results
5.6.1 Aerodynamic Descent—Nominal
5.6.2 Aerodynamic Descent—Dispersed Cases
5.6.3 Powered Landing—Nominal
5.6.4 Powered Landing—Dispersed Cases
5.7 Conclusions
References
6 Simultaneous Trajectory Optimization for Adaptive Powered Descent
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Multi-point Powered Descent Based on Optimal Sensitivity
6.2.1 Problem Formulation
6.2.2 Optimal Sensitivity
6.2.3 Multi-point Guidance Algorithm
6.2.4 Simulation Results
6.3 Highway Powered Descent Based on Successive Convexification
6.3.1 Problem Formulation
6.3.2 Successive Convexification
6.3.3 Highway Guidance Algorithm
6.3.4 Simulation Results
6.4 Conclusions
References
7 Aerodynamic Parameter Estimation for Launch Vehicles
7.1 Introduction
7.1.1 What is Aerodynamic Parameter Estimation
7.1.2 Approaches for Aerodynamic Parameters Estimation
7.2 Statistic Criterion Based Aerodynamic Parameter Estimation
7.3 Numerical Results
7.4 Conclusions
References
Appendix Conclusions
