Integrated Guidance and Control of Generic Hypersonic Glide Vehicles Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) encounter a wide range of speeds and extreme thermal environments; this creates complex flowfields that make guidance and control challenging. Rapid modeling of a glider’s aerodynamic performance often relies on limited data-driven or empirical models. However, these models frequently overlook critical physics and necessary couplings, limiting their applicability and generalizability to new aerodynamic shapes. With modern advancements in numerical methods and computational hardware, high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a practical tool for rapidly generating data for HGVs and reducing uncertainties in control-related dynamics. In this work, an integrated guidance and control framework using a linear time-varying model predictive controller (LTV-MPC) has been applied to a generic HGV, with aerodynamic loads computed using CFD to capture the complex flow physics. An expansive aerodynamic database was rapidly generated, revealing that scaling the aerodynamic data by dynamic pressure yielded good agreement within the glide regime for moderate angles of attack and control surface deflections. Two quasi-equilibrium glide trajectories are evaluated in our simulations, 1) a trajectory featuring a pull-up maneuver, and 2) a trajectory maintaining constant dynamic pressure. In both cases, the proposed framework achieves adequate tracking performance, demonstrating its nominal robustness. This is notable as the LTV-MPC operates using linear models, yet the control inputs that it synthesizes are successfully applied to the nonlinear dynamics of the vehicle. This research supports ongoing efforts in multi-disciplinary design and optimization (MDAO) of hypersonic systems at the University of Minnesota. Significant progress has been achieved in developing rapid geometry and mesh generation techniques for parametrically defined geometries. Additionally, mesh deformation plugins have been integrated into the US3D CFD framework, facilitating the efficient generation of hypersonic flow fields for varying control surface deflections on complex geometries.