Polytopic LPV modeling and gain-scheduled switching control for a flexible air-breathing hypersonic vehicle

A novel gain-scheduled switching control method for the longitudinal motion of a flexible air-breathing hypersonic vehicle (FAHV) is proposed. Firstly, velocity and altitude are selected as scheduling variables, a polytopic linear parameter varying (LPV) model is developed to represent the complex nonlinear longitudinal dynamics of the FAHV. Secondly, based on the obtained polytopic LPV model, the flight envelope is divided into four smaller subregions, and four gain-scheduled controllers are designed for these parameter subregions. Then, by the defined switching characteristic function, these gain-scheduled controllers are switched in order to guarantee the closed-loop FAHV system to be asymptotically stable and satisfy a given tracking error performance criterion. The condition of gain-scheduled switching controller synthesis is given in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) which can be easily solved by using standard software packages. Finally, simulation results show the effectiveness of the presented method.