Sliding Mode Control of Launch Vehicles' Flight Path Slope Angle

The paper presents the design of an adaptive system for the control of flight path slope angle associated to launch vehicles' motion in vertical plane during their second flight stage, after the launch phase, by using the sliding mode control and the dynamic inversion principle. The control law is obtained by means of a Lyapunov positive defined function and it is based on the estimation of an unknown aerodynamic parameters. The theoretical results are validated in Matlab for a concrete example associated to a launch vehicle's motion in vertical plane.