Predefined-time attitude control for hypersonic morphing vehicles using morphing information-driven event

This research investigates the attitude control system design for hypersonic morphing vehicles (HMVs) subject to limited system resources. HMVs are always developed to perform cross-domain flights, which includes cross velocity-range and airspace segments. These conditions and complex flight environments lead to serious flight control issues: 1) fast attitude-tracking is required for HMVs; 2) HMVs are systems with limited system resources, demanding system resource preservation in the condition of high-performance tracking. Therefore, the following work is arranged to address the control issue. Firstly, a multivariable predefined-time control (PTC) system is developed for the HMV attitude system. A predefined-time command filter is constructed to avoid the “explosion of derivative” issue. With the help of the predefined-time control strategy, back-stepping control method, and the command filter, the ideal predefined-time controller is induced. Then, a morphing information-driven (MI-driven) event-triggering mechanism (ETM) is developed to save the system resources. For investigation, the Lyapunov theory is adopted to prove the stability, and several simulations validate the performance of the proposed control strategy. The contribution is summarized as follows: 1) fast attitude-tracking is ensured for HMVs by developing predefined-time controller; 2) the proposed ETM could actively utilize the morphing information to adjust the triggering policy, which is a distinctive development. It is emphasized that introducing the MI into the ETM could further preserve the system resource in continuous morphing stages.