Single‐range controller design for a cruise missile

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the application of a systematic single‐range controller design procedure to control a cruise missile.Design/methodology/approachThe controller design approach is based on one describing function model of the missile followed by linear system identification. The missile includes discontinuous nonlinear terms, and therefore, a small signal model is not obtainable by straight linearization. Once a linear approximation to the quasilinear model of the missile is obtained, a H∞ controller is designed to achieve a robust nonlinear closed‐loop system.FindingsIt is found that performance of the closed‐loop system with the applied simple controller design approach competes with one other complicated describing function‐based controller design technique.Research limitations/implicationsAt present, the research is limited to design of linear H∞ controllers.Practical implicationsThe major outcome of this paper is the verification that the applied simple describing function‐based H∞ controller design procedure may be used to design high‐performance controllers for cruise missiles.Originality/valueThis is the first paper that adopts an existing single‐range H∞ controller design procedure to design high‐performance controllers for cruise missiles.