Trajectory Tracking Control for Hypersonic Vehicle Based on Differential Flatness and ADRC

This paper presents a trajectory tracking control scheme for hypersonic vehicles based on differential flatness and ADRC. Differential flatness is skilled in dealing with nonlinear systems and is widely used in the trajectory planning of aircrafts to improve its computational efficiency. However, the application of differential flatness in higher-order systems will produce the problem of differential explosion. In this paper, an integrated controller based on differential flatness theory and ADRC is designed. ADRC is recognized as a good solution in attitude control and has been verified in many researches. The combination realizes the complementarity of their shortcomings. The performance deficiency of high-order ESO and differential explosion have been effectively avoided. Simulations are presented to verify the proposed control scheme. From the simulation results, the proposed control scheme is shown to have good tracking accuracy and robustness.