Numerical Analyses and a Nonlinear Composite Controller for a Real-Time Ground Aerodynamic Heating Simulation of a Hypersonic Flying Object

This paper contains two parts: numerical analyses and a control method. The numerical analyses of a hypersonic flying object’s aerodynamic heating environment are based on three different two-dimensional outflow fields via finite element calculations. Then, the reference temperature trajectories of a hypersonic flying object are obtained. The other one is an intelligent proportional-derivative (IPD) with a nonlinear global sliding mode control (NGSMC) based on a nonlinear extended state observer (NESO) for a real-time ground aerodynamic heating simulation of a hypersonic flying object, named a thermal-structural test with quartz lamp heaters. The composite controller is made of three sub-components: a model free frame that is independent of the system dynamic model along with an ultra-local model; a NESO for the lumped disturbances observation; and an integral sliding mode control with a nonlinear function for the observation errors compensation. The flight environment of the hypersonic flying object is from Mach number 0.6 to Mach number 5.0, with between flight altitude of 31,272 m and flight altitude of 13,577 m. The comparative results demonstrate some superiorities of the proposed composite controller in terms of tracking errors and robustness.