Adaptive sliding mode roll control of a canard-controlled missile

This work is meant to design a roll controller for a short range missile with a free-spinning tail using the sliding mode control technique. Four canards located near the nose of the missile provide aerodynamic control. Pitch/yaw stability is achieved through four rotating fins located at the tail of the missile. Range of the missile dictates the whole trajectory in the atmosphere where dynamic pressure varies between 0 and 7 bars. Also the missile can be fired at different launch angles, which implies that the profile of dynamic pressure is not fixed. Control strategy strongly depends on dynamic pressure in the case of canard-controlled missile. In the case of varying dynamic pressure, design of a robust roll controller that can keep roll angle near zero is a challenging task. In this paper, a roll controller is designed for a canard-controlled short range missile using sliding mode control technique. Adaption is done in some control parameters to cater the variation in dynamic pressure and different launch angle. The robustness of the roll controller is tested in the presence of aerodynamic and other disturbances. It is established that the proposed roll controller is capable of rejecting aerodynamic and other disturbances and keep the roll angle close to zero.