Missile autopilot design using Mu-Synthesis

Due to increasingly difficult threats, current air defense missile systems are pushed to the limits of their performance capabilities. In order to defend against these more stressing threats, interceptor missiles require greater maneuverability, faster response time, and increased robustness to more severe environmental conditions. One of the most critical missile system elements is the flight control system, since its time constant is typically half of the total missile system time constant. Conventional autopilot design techniques have worked well in the past, but in order to satisfy future and more stringent design specifications, new design methods are necessary. Robust control techniques (in particular, H-Infinity Control and Mu-Synthesis) and their application to the design of missile autopilots are addressed in this thesis. In addition, conventional autopilot designs are performed as comparative benchmarks. This paper reviews the missile autopilot design problem and presents descriptions of the classical and H-Infinity/Mu design methods. Missile autopilot designs considering both rigid-body dynamics and elastic-body dynamics are presented. Comparisons of the design approaches and results are also discussed. The results show that the application of robust control techniques to the design of missile autopilots can improve the performance and stability robustness characteristics of the flight control system.