Switching multi-model predictive control for hypersonic vehicle

Hypersonic vehicle has the characteristics of strong nonlinearity, time-varying, strong coupling and large flight envelope, which make the controller design extremely difficult. In this paper, the longitudinal dynamic model of hypersonic vehicle is studied. Firstly, the linearized model around the equilibrium point is acquired and analyzed. Subsequently, a predictive controller is designed based on the linearized model to track the velocity setpoint under a certain flight condition. In order to extend the controller ability to large flight envelope, a multi-model switching based predictive control method is proposed. Simulation results show that the method could get better performance then single-model based predictive control.