Terminal sliding mode control design for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles

A terminal sliding mode controller is designed for a generic air-breathing hypersonic vehicles (AHVs). The model of AHVs is nonlinear, and includes uncertain parameters and intricate coupling between the engine and flight dynamics. An affine form of the longitudinal model is obtained by input/output linearization, and then a controller is designed by using terminal sliding mode method. The terminal sliding mode can make the system stabilize in finite time. Simulation results are provided to show the availability of the designed controller by excellent altitude and velocity tracking performance.