A new hybrid LFT control method for missile autopilot design

This paper presents a new hybrid gain-scheduling control method for missile autopilot design. The nonlinear missile dynamics is first converted to a switched linear fractional transformation (LFT) model for controller design and synthesis purpose. Then, by using multiple Lyapunov functions and average dwell time (ADT) techniques, a new hybrid gain-scheduling autopilot is designed, which consists of a switching dynamic output-feedback LFT controller and a controller state jump dynamics. The associated control synthesis conditions guaranteeing weighted ℒ2 stability are formulated in terms of a finite number of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), which can be solved effectively via convex optimization without parameter-space gridding. Nonlinear simulation studies show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.