Signum function as a compensating technique for minimizing the effects of dead band of actuators used for control of aerospace vehicles

The nonlinearities in the actuators of flight control system for the high speed aerospace vehicles like missiles will affect the vehicle's performance in terms of its body rates and accelerations. The high body rates in turn affect the precise tracking of the target. In the proposed work, Signum function technique was implemented to see its effectiveness in reducing the effect of dead band of the actuator on the vehicle. The magnitude of the signum function is found to be critically affecting the usage of the function. Comparative studies are conducted and the results are presented.