Use of soft computing technologies for rocket engine control

NASA issues and remedial applications for rocket engine control are presented. A testbed for researching these applications is presented and further detailed. Automation and control of the operation of the testbed, a Turbine Technologies SR-30 (single radial) small turbojet engine, is discussed. A fast data acquisition board, fuel-flow rate meter, a valve controller are implemented to the existing system, which was already equipped with pressure, temperature, RPM and load sensors. Start, operation and stop sequences are automated using National Instruments Labview software. Classic PID control algorithm is applied in the initial phase of the automation. Data collected during the start, transient/steady operation, and stop sequences of the engine has been analyzed to design a Bayesian Belief control algorithm. PID algorithm implementation and fuzzy algorithms are currently being conducted.