Modeling of thrust misalignment and wind disturbances for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles

The controller design for an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle (AHV) is very challenging, mainly because of large uncertainties and disturbances existing in flight dynamics. For a specific AHV, this paper presents a new methodology to construct mathematical models of the main disturbances which are seldom involved by other AHV literatures. First, it considers the moment disturbance induced by the thrust misalignment of the engine. Second, a new group of 12 states nonlinear equations is derived for the AHV subjected to variable wind field. Finally, the simulation results of these disturbance models are given to express their features. Thus, the presented models can become the simulation tools employed to assess control laws of AHVs with thrust misalignment and wind disturbances.