Design of fast sliding mode control on air-breathing hypersonic vehicles

In this paper, we investigate the tracking control of air-breathing hypersonic vehicles with a fast sliding mode controller. Based on the three order and four order subsystems after feedback linearization, new tracking error systems are developed. Subsequently, the nonsingular terminal sliding mode control is introduced to make that new error variables converge to zero in finite time. The time property is considered during the whole tracking process. By designing the nonsingular terminal sliding mode control, the tracking of high-order nonlinear systems is accelerated and then the velocity error and the altitude error continuously converge to zero. Simulation is executed to show the fast sliding mode control is effective and robust for the tracking control of air-breathing hypersonic vehicles subjected to parameter uncertainties.