A new approach to nonlinear autopilot design for bank-to-turn missiles

Presents an autopilot controller for bank-to-turn (BTT) missiles. In the design and stability analysis of the proposed autopilot controller, all the nonlinearities of the missile dynamics including the coupling effect due to bank and roll angles as well as the asymmetry of missile body are fully considered. It is shown that through a kind of partial linearization along with singular perturbation techniques we can transform the missile dynamics, which are of nonminimum phase, into an approximately I/O feedback-linearizable system. Thereby, the I/O dynamic characteristics of pitch, yaw and roll channels can be made linear, decoupled, and completely independent of flight conditions such as missile velocity and air density.